on   t>  •  -et 

I    --it 

Thnrnng    A  spinwall 


AT   LOS  ANGELES 


REMARKS 


N  A  R  R A  G  A  N  S  E  T    PATENT 


HEAD     1JKFOKK 


T,V  THOMAS  ASPINWALL. 


S   i:  C  o  N  I)     K  1)1  T  I  0  N  . 


PKOVIDENCE: 

s  i  i)  x  !•;  v   s.   I;ID  EI;   x-    i?  i;  o 


REMARKS 


ON  THE 


NARRAGANSET    PATENT 


READ    BEFORE 


JUNE,  1862, 


BY  THOMAS  ASPINWALL. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


PROVIDENCE: 
SIDNEY    S.     EIDER    &    BKOTHEK. 

1865. 


KNOWLES,    AHTHONY    &    CO.,    PKINTEKS. 


865 


PEEFATORY  REMAEKS. 


THE  NARRAGANSET  PATENT,  the  subject  of  the  following  pages, 
is  an  instrument  engrossed  on  parchment,  at  present  at  the 
State  House,  which  purports  to  be  a  grant,  dated  Dec.  10,  1643, 
from  the  Parliamentary  Commissioners  to  the  Governor,  &c., 
of  the  Colony  of  Massachusetts,  of  the  territory  which  sub- 
stantially at  present  constitutes  the  State  of  Ehode  Island. 

This  patent  having  been  a  subject  of  discussion  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society  on  one  or  two  occasions,  the  author 
was  induced  to  inspect  the  instrument  itself.  The  result  of  his 
examination,  made  on  the  29th  of  March,  1860,  was  briefly 
stated,  in  a  description  which  he  gave  of  it  in  its  present  con- 
dition, at  the  meeting  of  the  Society  in  the  following  May, 

5  accompanied  with   a  few   remarks  comprising   the   following 

1  principal  heads, — that  the  patent  was  invalid,  not  having  been 

**  signed  by  a  majority  of  the   Commissioners,  as  required  by 

•§  ordinance  ;    that  it  therefore  afforded  no  justification  of  the 

severities  of  our  forefathers  towards  their  weaker  neighbors  ; 
that  it  was  not  mentioned  by  Winthrop  or  Hutchinson  ;  that 
Roger  Williams  had  asserted,  that  the  patent  had  been  publicly 
disavowed  by  the  Lord  President  of  the  Board  of  Plantation 
^Commissioners  ;  that  it  was  now  clear  that  Roger  Williams's 

6  account  was   true ;  and,  finally,  that  Winthrop's  silence  was 
N,  probably  owing  to  his  consciousness  of  the  worthless  character 

of  the  instrument. 


1558655 


4  PREFATORY   REMARKS. 

Nearly  two  years  after,  at  the  February  meeting,  in  1862,  an 
official  copy  of  the  patent  was  produced  and  commented  on 
by  Mr.  Deane.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks,  he  controverted 
most  of  the  positions  previously  taken  by  the  author.  He  con- 
tended that  the  patent  was  valid,  and  would  have  been  so  had 
it  been  signed  only  by  the  President  and  any  four  of  the  Com- 
missioners ;  that  Eoger  Williams's  testimony  in  disparagement 
of  its  validity  was  not  altogether  to  be  relied  upon.  He  showed 
that  it  had  been  once  alluded  to  by  Winthrop  :  and  had  also, 
on  that  occasion,  as  he  conceived,  been  treated  as  genuine  and 
legal.  These  counter-statements  and  some  others  of  less  rele- 
vancy are  answered  in  the  following  pages,  and  some  further 
considerations  are  added,  which  perhaps  may  serve  to  elucidate 
the  character  and  history  of  the  subject.  A  summary  and  two 
notes  have  been  appended  since  the  paper  was  read  to  the 
Society. 


THE  NARRAGANSET  PATENT. 


Mr.  PRESIDENT, — At  our  last  February  meeting,  our  hon- 
ored colleague,  Mr.  Deane,  gave  a  commentary,  marked  with 
his  accustomed  ability  and  spirit  of  research,  on  a  copy  of  the 
Narraganset  Patent,  which  had  been  furnished  him  from  your 
own  collection  of  historical  and  family  papers.  Towards  the 
close  of  his  observations,  he  courteously  animadverted  upon 
some  remarks  against  the  validity  of  that  patent,  which  I  had 
made  here,  two  years  ago,  after  having  inspected  the  original 
document  at  the  State  House. 

The  revival  of  the  subject  was  wholly  unexpected  by  me ; 
and  although  I  could  hardly,  on  a  sudden,  recollect  precisely 
the  remarks  I  had  made  so  long  before,  or  so  clearly  discern 
the  force  and  tendency  of  the  objections  brought  against  them 
as  to  give  a  complete  answer  to  each  objection,  yet  I  felt  de- 
sirous to  satisfy  the  Society  that  I  had  not  lightly  obtruded 
upon  it  a  crude  opinion  respecting  a  subject  of  historical  in- 
terest, and  likewise  that  I  had  sound  reason  for  adopting,  and 
for  continuing  to  maintain,  that  opinion  :  but  having  given  way 
to  a  senior  member,  who  rose  at  the  same  moment  to  speak  on 
the  subject,  it  so  happened  that  I  had  not  the  good  fortune 
afterwards  to  obtain  a  hearing, — a  circumstance  which  I  the 
more  regret,  because  it  deprived  me  of  the  opportunity  (I  will 
not  say  advantage)  of  having  my  defence  appear  in  the  latest 
volume  of  our  Proceedings,  side  by  side  with  the  criticism  which 
it  was  intended  to  answer. 

With  permission,  I  will  now  avail  myself  of  this  first  regular 
return  of  my  section  to  enter  upon  the  vindication  of  my  opinion 
in  regard  to  the  patent. 


6  THE   NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 

In  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Deane's  notice  of  my  remarks,  it  is 
said,  that,  "  in  proof  of  the  nullity  of  the  patent,  I  had  alleged 
that  the  document  had  no  seal,  public  or  private,  nor  any  indi- 
cation of  enrolment  or  registration  "  (Proceed.  Hist.  Soc.,  iii. 
404).  Now,  these  words  are  part  of  the  description  I  gave  of 
the  document  in  its  present  condition ;  but  they  form  no  part 
of  my  argument.  On  the  contrary,  my  inference,  that  the 
patent  was  a  nullity,  was  distinctly  drawn  from  the  simple  fact, 
that  it  did  not  bear  the  signatures  of  so  many  of  the  commis- 
sioners as  the  parliamentary  ordinance  prescribed.  (Idem,  p.  40  ; 
Hazard,  i.  533). 

I  deemed  it  useful  to  mention  the  absence  of  seals  and  in- 
dorsements of  any  kind,  that  the  actual  state  of  the  instrument, 
at  this  particular  period,  might  be  accurately  known.  I  may 
add,  that  a  knowledge  of  its  state,  at  different  periods,  might 
shed  much  light  on  what  is  now  obscure  in  its  origin  and  his- 
tory. Besides,  the  absence  of  all  indications  of  enrolment  or 
registration  determined  at  once  the  character  of  the  instrument 
as  an  original,  and  not  an  enrolment  duplicate,  nor  an  exempli- 
fication :  in  both  which  latter,  such  indications,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  would  have  appeared. 

Mr.  Deane's  argument  also  erroneously  assumes,  that  I  had 
represented  the  inscription  of  some  note,  or  memorandum  of 
enrolment,  as  an  indispensable  prerequisite  of  a  valid  charter. 
It  is  true,  that,  by  the  laws  of  England  (27  Hen.  VIII.,  c.  11 ; 
Bl.  Com.,  ii.  c.  xxi.  §  2),  all  letters-patent  must  be  enrolled  ; 
and  the  fact  of  enrolment  is  sometimes  noted  upon  them. 
This  I  apprehend,  however,  to  be  a  discretionary  act,  mostly 
professional  rather  than  official,  and  not  enjoined  by  law  or 
regulation. 

I  may  here  state,  that  I  am  not  aware  of  any  evidence  extant, 
nor  even  of  any  pretence,  that  this  indispensable  formality  of 
enrolment  was  ever  complied  with  in  the  case  in  question.  On 
this  account  alone,  the  Narraganset  Patent  would  be  fatally 
defectiv.e  from  the  beginning. 

As,  under  the  third  head  of  Mr.  Deane's  comment  on  my 
remarks,  his  argument  addresses  itself  in  form,  apparently  to 


THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT.  7 

the  phraseology  rather  than  to  the  substance  of  my  reasoning, 
it  may  be  advisable,  for  the  moment,  to  consider  it  in  that  light. 
I  had  said  that  the  patent  was  invalid,  because  it  had  not  the 
assent  of  a  majority  of  the  Board  of  Commissioners,  which,  by 
the  ordinance,  was  required  for  each  of  its  acts.  Mr.  Deane 
seems  to  think  it  sufficient  to  meet  this  inference  by  stating,  in 
effect,  that,  in  consequence  of  authority  given  to  the  president 
and  any  four  commissioners  to  perform  certain  functions,  a 
majority  was  not  necessary  for  all  acts  whatever ;  but  I  was 
not  speaking  of  ordinary  official  details,  nor  of  such  current 
business,  as,  in  most  analogous  cases,  is  transacted  by  a  few  out 
of  the  whole  body  of  associates.  The  subject  treated  of  was  a 
patent ;  and  my  meaning  naturally  was,  that  for  issuing  a 
patent,  and  for  each  act  of  that  nature,  the  concurrence  of  a 
majority  was  requisite.  My  expression,  "  each  of  its  acts,"  is, 
in  truth,  not  scrupulously  exact.  Had  it  been  "  such  of  its 
acts,"  or  "  acts  of  this  kind,"  either  phrase  would  have  been  a 
more  exact  version  of  the  sense  of  the  ordinance,  and  have  been 
quite  sufficient  to  embrace  the  case  of  the  patent  under  consid- 
eration, without  extending  to  other  acts  with  which  the  subject 
was  not  connected. 

But  taking  it  for  granted  that  a  logical  confutation,  and  not 
a  mere  verbal  criticism,  was  intended,  I  proceed  to  the  consid- 
eration of  Mr.  Deane's  argument.  He  alleges  that  the  patent 
is  valid,  although  signed  by  less  than  a  majority  of  the  commis- 
sioners, because  a  majority  is  necessary  only  for  certain  specific 
acts  ;  while,  for  the  transaction  of  the  general  business  of  the 
Board,  the  ordinance  requires  only  the  assent  of  the  president 
and  any  four  of  his  associates.  To  which  I  reply,  that  the 
grant  of  a  charter,  such  as  that  in  question,  is  precisely  one  of 
those  exceptional  specific  acts  which  could  only  be  legalized 
by  a  majority. 

The  object  of  the  clause  relative  to  the  president  and  four 
commissioners  was,  primarily,  to  fix  the  lowest  number  by 
which  any  business  could  be  done;  but  I  have  failed  to  dis- 
cover a  single  instance  in  which  that  mere  quorum  ever  acted. 
The  perilous  aspect  of  the  times  would  suggest  to  the  commis-- 


THE    NAKRAGANSET    PATENT. 

sioners  the  obvious  expediency  of  sharing  responsibility  among 
as  many  as  possible.  Their  practice  coincided  with  this  view 
of  their  position.  In  Winthrop's  Journal  are  four  documents 
emanating  from  the  Committee  of  Plantations,  and  every  one 
of  them  is  signed  by  a  majority  or  more  of  the  commissioners 
(ii.  272,  280,  318,  320). 

Again :  the  sphere  of  duty  assigned  to  this  smaller  quorum 
was  administrative.  It  included  neither  the  power  of  appoint- 
ment to  plantation-offices,  nor  the  authority  to  change,  in  any 
degree,  the  existing  form  or  system  of  territorial  government. 
Both  these  subjects  were,  by  subsequent  clauses  of  the  ordi- 
nance, distinctly  placed  under  the  control  of  the  chief  governor 
and  commissioners,  or  the  greater  number  of  them  (Hazard,  i. 
ut  supra). 

The  clause  which  specially  concerns  the  present  question  is 
as  follows :  "  And  whereas,  for  the  better  government  and 
security  of  the  said  plantations,  islands,  owners,  and  inhabitants, 
there  may  be  just  and  fit  occasion  to  assign  over  some  part  of 
the  power  and  authority,  granted  in  this  ordinance  to  the  chief 
governor  and  commissioners  aforenamed,  unto  said  owners, 
inhabitants,  and  others,  it  is  hereby  ordained,  that  the  said 
governor  and  commissioners,  or  the  greater  number  of  them, 
shall  be  hereby  authorized  to  assign,  ratify,  and  confirm  so 
much  of  their  aforenamed  authority  and  power  to  such  persons 
as  they  shall  judge  fit  for  the  better  governing  and  preserving 
of  said  plantations  and  islands  from  open  violence  and  private 
disturbances." 

By  this  clause,  no  transfer  of  the  power  and  authority  vested 
in  the  commissioners  could  be  made  without  the  assent  of  a 
majority.  At  the  date  of  the  ordinance,  the  power  and  juris- 
diction of  the  Board  of  Commissioners  extended,  and  might,  at 
discretion,  have  been  exercised  directly,  over  the  whole  terri- 
tory described  in  the  Narraganset  Patent,  and  over  all  its  inter- 
nal, intercolonial,  and  external  relations. 

A  simple  cession  of  the  soil,  unaccompanied  by  any  express 
reservation,  if  made  to  a  chartered  corporation  invested  with 
the  powers  of  civil  government,  would  have  carried  with  it  the 


THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT.  9 

right  of  government,  at  least  ad  interim,  and  during  the  plea- 
sure of  the  Board. 

Such  was  the  construction  given  by  the  Connecticut  authori- 
ties to  the  Warwick  Patent,  or  rather  deed  of  conveyance,  to 
Lord  Say  and  Scale  and  others,  of  the  19th  March,  1631-2  : 
although  Connecticut,  at  the  time  of  her  subsequent  purchase 
from  Fenwick,  was  only  a  voluntary  association  ;  and  although 
the  deed  itself  contains  no  express  nor  any  implied  transfer  of 
civil  power  beyond  what  may  be  gathered  from  the  loose  and 
general  words  "jurisdiction,  rights,"  &c.,  whatever  they  might 
be,  of  the  grantors.  Nor,  again,  is  there  in  the  deed  any  recital 
of  title,  or  even  phrase,  to  explain  what  rights  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick had,  or  whence  he  obtained  them. 

The  Massachusetts  authorities  adopted  a  similar  construction 
of  the  Narraganset  Patent,  in  their  letter  dated  the  27th  of 
August,  1645,  forbidding  Roger  Williams  "  to  exercise  juris- 
diction in  Providence  and  the  Island  of  Quiday."  But  they 
had  stronger  grounds  for  this  construction.  The  Narraganset 
Patent  is  explicit.  The  transfer  of  dominion  is  clearly  set  forth 
in  that  clause,  which  "  orders  and  appoints  the  governor,  assis- 
tants, and  freemen  of  Massachusetts  to  govern  "  the  Narragan- 
set territory  in  the  same  manner  as  was  prescribed  in  their  own 
royal  charter.  This  being  such  an  assignment  of  power  and 
authority  as  required  the  assent  of  a  collective  majority  of  the 
chief  governor  and  commissioners,  and  the  Narraganset  Patent 
having  only  nine  signatures  (one  less  than  a  majority),  is, 
therefore,  and  always  was,  a  nullity,  invalid,  of  no  force  and 
effect  whatever  ;  and  never  could  have  passed  the  commission- 
ers' table,  unless  we  resort  to  the  bold  assumption,  that  the 
Board  deliberately,  in  the  outset  of  its  official  career,  set  at 
defiance  the  organic  ordinance  to  which  it  owed  its  existence. 

The  declaration  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  that  he  was  sure 
the  patent  had  never  passed  the  table,  if  made,  as  asserted  by 
Eoger  Williams  in  his  letter  to  Mason,  (1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  i. 
279),  would  be  conclusive  proof  of  the  fact.  The  patent  could 
not  have  passed  without  his  knowledge,  because  the  ordinance 
required  that  he  should  be  present  at  all  meetings,  even  of  that 

2 


10  THE    NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

smaller  quorum  by  which  Mr.  Deane  supposes  it  might  have 
been  passed.  If,  therefore,  it  be  conceded  that  the  Board 
would  not  illegally  confirm  an  illegal  instrument,  the  question 
raised  under  Mr.  Deane's  fourth  division  is  narrowed  down  to 
this  single  point :  Did  the  earl  actually  utter  the  declaration  as 
stated  by  Williams?  Williams  himself  was  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  what  he  repeated ;  for  he  introduces  it 
with  the  emphatic  words,  "It  is  certain."  Mr.  Deane  also 
candidly  admits  his  sincerity  so  far  as  to  say,  "  that  he  should 
have  great  confidence  that  Williams  would  not  assert  what  he 
did  not  believe  to  be  true  ; "  but  still  he  intimates  that  it  is  not 
safe  to  rely  upon  his  statement :  1st,  Because  the  occurrence 
took  place  twenty-five  years  before  the  letter  to  Mason  was 
written ;  2d,  Because  Williams,  not  being  in  England  at  that 
time,  must  have  heard  the  story  from  Gorton  or  some  other 
person. 

Taking  these  objections,  for  convenience,  in  reverse  order,  I 
would  observe,  that  hearsay  evidence,  here  objected  to,  is  ad- 
mitted, even  under  the  rigid  rules  of  jurisprudence,  on  historical 
points,  wherever  it  is  the  best  evidence  attainable.  To  discard 
it  from  history  would  leave  us  only  a  ghastly  skeleton  of  the 
past.  But  no  part  of  the  evidence  to  which  I  shall  refer,  as  the 
foundation  of  Williams's  belief,  was  hearsay  to  him  :  it  was  the 
testimony  of  eye  and  ear  witnesses. 

I  readily  agree,  that  Gorton,  in  all  probability,  did  relate 
the  incident  in  question  to  multitudes  in  Rhode  Island,  and  to 
Williams  among  the  rest,  soon  after  his  return  from'  England 
in  May,  1648  ;  and  I  think  his  account  deserved  full  credit : 
for  although  unwarrantable  attempts  were  made  to  disgrace 
and  destroy  him,  because,  unconsecrated  by  ordination  and  not 
privileged  by  a  university  education,  he  presumed  to  exercise 
the  functions  of  a  scriptural  teacher,  and  because  he  was  as 
steadfast  as  he  was  extravagant  and  heterodox  in  his  religious 
opinions,  insolent  under  provocation,  and  too  ready  to  return 
railing  for  railing,  yet  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  shows  that  he 
was  conscientious,  sincere,  and,  in  matters  of  fact,  honest  and 
truthful. 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  11 

If,  however,  there  were  any  errors  in  Gorton's  story,  Wil- 
liams had,  at  a  later  period,  ample  opportunity  to  correct  them. 
From  the  end  of  1651  to  the  summer  of  1654,  he  was  in  Eng- 
land, employed,  jointly  with  John  Clarke,  as  agent  of  the  Col- 
ony to  procure  from  the  Council  of  State  the  abrogation  of 
Coddington's  Charter,  and  the  confirmation  of  the  Providence- 
Plantations  Charter,  obtained  by  Williams  in  1644.  Most  of 
the  distinguished  persons,  who,  in  1644,  were  commissioners  of 
plantations,  were  then  living.  Six  of  them,  including  three 
signers  of  his  charter,  were  members  of  the  Council  of  State  in 
April,  1652,  when  the  petition  of  himself  and  Clarke  was  pre- 
sented, (Parl.  Hist.,  xx.  78,  79).  Two  of  these  (Cornelius 
Holland  and  Sir  Henry  Vane)  labored  with  him  so  zealously, 
that  they  received  the  thanks  of  the  Colony  for  their  eminent 
services  in  her  behalf,  (Backus,  i.  296).  Sir  Henry  aided  in 
framing  the  petition,  and  exerted  all  his  influence  and  personal 
ability  to  insure  it  success.  Williams  called  him  "  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  our  ship,"  (id.,  p.  280).  He  was  on  terms  of  such 
intimacy  with  Sir  Henry,  as  to  be,  for  more  than  ten  weeks,  a 
guest  at  Belleau,  the  country  residence  of  Sir  Henry,  in  Lin- 
colnshire. Many,  if  not  most,  of  these  ex-commissioners  were 
personally  cognizant  of  all  that  had  transpired  .at  the  Board  at 
the  hearing  of  Gorton's  complaint ;  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  Williams  sought,  and  that  they  gave  him,  in  the 
course  of  his  last  visit  to  England,  full  and  authentic  informa- 
tion in  regard  to  the  declaration  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick. 

Moreover,  Winslow — the  agent  of  Massachusetts  and  the 
other  colonies,  the  old  antagonist  of  Gorton — was  still  in  Lon- 
don, and  no  doubt  would,  if  he  could,  have  contradicted  the 
story  of  the  earl's  declaration  ;  and  as  he  and  Williams,  though 
personally  friends,  were  unavoidably  often  brought  into  conflict 
where  this  very  story  would  have  been  alleged  as  an  argument 
in  support  of  the  Rhode-Island  Charter,  Williams's  grave 
recital  of  it,  sixteen  (not  twenty-five)  years  after,  is  strong  pre- 
sumptive proof,  that  the  story  was  virtually  or  expressly  con- 
firmed, even  by  Winslow  himself,  the  arch-enemy  of  Gorton 
and  the  Providence-Plantations  Charter,  and  the  official  advo- 


12  THE   NAKRAGANSET   PATENT. 

cate  of  the  "  pretended  "  patent  denounced  by  the  declaration 
in  question. 

Now,  whoever,  in  this  host  of  competent  and  credible  wit- 
nesses, might  be  his  informant,  Roger  Williams  had  too  much 
discernment  and  circumspection  to  misunderstand  or  misjudge, 
or  to  adopt  credulously,  and  without  proper  scrutiny,  the  ac- 
counts they  gave  him.  Nor  would  he  be  likely  to  forget  the 
report  of  an  incident  of  such  paramount  interest  to  him,  so 
vitally  important  to  Rhode  Island,  and  so  intimately  connected 
with  all  his  public  labors,  with  the  promotion  of  his  long- 
cherished  moral  purposes,  and  with  the  grand  achievement  of 
his  political  life. 

But  Mr.  Deane,  as  mentioned  before,  intimates  that  it  is  not 
safe  to  rely  upon  the  statement  of  Williams,  because  it  was 
made  twenty-five  years  after  the  occurrence  ;  leaving  it  to  be 
inferred  that  Williams's  memory  was  not  to  be  trusted  for  that 
length  of  time. 

This,  I  apprehend,  is  altogether  a  gratuitous  surmise  ;  an 
assumption  not  based  on  alleged  facts,  nor  warranted  on  general 
principles,  and  specially  contradicted  by  what  we  know  of  the 
latter  years  of  Williams. 

It  is  almost,  universally  admitted,  as  a  law  of  our  nature, 
that,  in  aged  persons,  the  memory  retains  its  earlier  more  firmly 
than  its  more  recent  acquisitions  ;  and  that  those  impressions 
which  are  deepest  are  also  the  most  permanent.  Consequently, 
although  Williams,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  might  find  that  tame 
and  ordinary  occurrences  of  the  preceding  day,  week,  or  month, 
were  more  apt  than  formerly  to  escape  his  recollection,  yet  he 
would  not,  on  that  account,  be  the  less  sure  to  remember  accu- 
rately an  incident  of  very  great  interest,  which  had  been  made 
known  to  him  at  the  age  of  fifty-four,  and  which  had  been  trea- 
sured up  for  sixteen  years  after,  as  a  subject  of  reflection,  and  a 
frequent  topic  of  conversation.  Before  we  are  called  upon  to 
disbelieve  his  account  of  such  an  incident,  we  should  have  posi- 
tive proof  of  an  extraordinary  decay  of  his  memory. 

The  facts,  however,  in  his  case,  are  proof  to  the  contrary. 
Two  years  after  this  period  of  supposed  infirmity,  he  was  in 


THE   NAKRAGANSET    PATENT.  13 

such  full  possession  of  all  his  faculties,  mental  and  corporeal,  as 
to  row  his  boat  thirty  miles  in  one  day ;  and  on  the  next,  after 
a  few  hours'  repose,  to  engage  in  a  three-days'  debate  on  four- 
teen propositions  against  three  logical  champions  of  Fox,  the 
Quaker, — a  contest  which  could  have  been  maintained  by  no 
one  without  the  aid  of  a  strong  memory  and  an  unimpaired 
intellect,  (Backus,  i.  461  ;  Knowles,  p.  338).  In  1677,  (seven 
years  after  his  letter  to  Mason  was  written),  his  memory  was 
strong  enough  to  enable  him  to  give  the  world  a  full  account 
of  this  three-days'  debate  and  its  sequel  at  Providence,  in  his 
"  George  Fox  dig-o-ed  out  of  his  Burrowes."  His  letter  of  the 

o  CO 

6th  of  May,  1682,  to  Governor  Bradstreet,  (which  is  in  the 
possession  of  this  Society,  and  in  which  he  solicited  the  gover- 
nor's friendly  aid  towards  the  printing  of  Williams's  manuscript 
discourses),  furnishes  us  with  an  incident  that  demonstrates 
both  that  his  memory  was  then  good,  and  that  he  preserved  it, 
by  keeping  it,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three,  in  habitual  exercise. 
He  writes,  "  By  my  fireside,  I  have  recollected  the  discourses 
which  (by  many  tedious  journeys)  I  have  had  with  the  scat- 
tered English  at  Narraganset,  before  the  war  and  since.  I 
have  reduced  them  to  those  twenty-two  heads  (enclosed),  which 
is  near  thirty  sheets  of  my  writing." 

The  confidence  of  his  neighbors,  who  knew  him  best,  in  the 
fidelity  of  his  memory,  was  manifested  in  various  ways,  and 
continued  unabated  to  the  close  of  his  life.  Three  or  four 
months  only  before  his  death,  he  was  called  upon  to  sign  an 
instrument,  intended  as  a  settlement  of  the  lono;-standin<y  con- 

'  O  O 

troversy,  of  which,  five  years  before,  he  had  drawn  up  a  long 
and  minute  analysis,  respecting  the  Pawtuxet  lands. 

An  additional  proof  of  the  slight  grounds  upon  which  the 
accuracy  of  Williams  has  been  brought  in  question  is,  that  the 
main  fact  embraced  in  Earl  Warwick's  declaration  was  asserted 
by  Williams's  former  colleague,  in  London,  John  Clarke,*  and 
others,  in  the  second  of  the  reasons  for  joining  the  King's  Pro- 


*  He  was  not  strictly  a  colleague.    He  was  the  a^eut  of  Newport  and  Ports- 
mouth ;  Williams,  of  Providence  and  Warwick. 


14  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

vince  to  Rhode  Island,  presented  to  Lord  Clarendon  in  a  peti- 
tion drawn  up  five  years  before  the  letter  to  Mason  was  written. 
It  is  there  alleged,  that  the  grant  u  which  Mr.  Welles,  (Welde), 
under-hand,  got  of  the  same  country,  was  prohibited,  being 
never  passed  the  council-table  nor  registered,"  (R.  I.  Rec.,  ii. 
162;  2  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  vii.  104).  It  may  be  added,  that, 
still  three  years  earlier,  President  Brenton  told  Edward  Hutch- 
inson,  (the  official  agent  of  Massachusetts),  that  "the"  Narra- 
ganset  "  Patent  was  not  fairly  got ;  "  that  "  there  was  no  such 
thing  upon  record  in  any  court  of  England,  for  he  had  sent  to 
search  the  records  : "  and  says  Hutchinson,  in  his  letter  to 
Secretary  Rawson,  2d  April,  1662,  "  find  there  theirs,  but  not 
ours,"  (Mass.  Archives,  ii.  26). 

I  should  not  have  dwelt  at  such  length  on  this  particular 
head ;  but  besides  that,  as  a  septuagenary,  I  felt  bound  to 
stand  by  my  order,  I  have  been  pained  to  find,  in  grave  history, 
the  credibility  of  Roger  Williams  impeached  on  the  same 
ground,  for  the  purpose  of  shielding  the  injustice  of  our  prede- 
cessors from  merited  censure. 

Under  the  fifth  head,  Mr.  Deane  very  justly  corrects  my 
error  in  stating  that  the  Narraganset  Patent  is  not  mentioned 
by  Winthrop ;  and  points  out  an  allusion  made  to  it  in  a  pre- 
liminary deliberation  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts, 
nearly  three  years  after  the  date  of  the  patent.  I  beg  to  apolo- 
gize for  this  oversight. 

It  is  a  long  time — many  years  before  I  knewr  of  any  Narra- 
ganset Patent — since  I  read  Winthrop's  Journal  continuously  ; 
and  when,  in  1860,  I  had  occasion  to  consult  it  in  reference  to 
the  patent,  I  naturally  sought  out  those  particular  places  where 
some  notice  might  be  expected  of  its  character  and  origin ;  of 
the  circumstances,  agency,  and  instructions  under  wrhich  it 
was  procured,  or  of  its  reception,  and  the  use  made  of  it  here, 
especially  at  the  return  from  England  of  Williams,  of  Gorton, 
and  of  his  associates  ;  in  the  instructions  of  1646  to  Winslow ; 
and  in  those  parts  of  the  journal  where  the  orders,  letters,  and 
passports,  emanating  from  the  Plantation  Commissioners,  are 
set  forth  at  length:  but,  in  all  these  places  (above  a  dozen),  the 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  15 

subject  seems  to  be  sedulously  avoided,  (Winth.,  ii.  25,  81,  76, 
159,  173, 193,  212,  220,  251,  272,  280-283,  295-297,  298,  316, 
318,  319,  322,  323).  In  mitigation  of  my  fault,  I  would  beg 
to  say  further,  that  the  casual  and  solitary  allusion  to  it,  now 
brought  to  view,  does  not,  in  the  slightest  degree,  affect  the 
justice  of  my  conclusion,  that  the  silence  of  Winthrop  was 
probably  owing  to  his  consciousness  that  the  patent  was  worth- 
less. His  comparative  silence,  his  carefully  abstaining  from  all 
notice  of  it  on  so  many  fitting  occasions, — especially  when 
coupled  with  his  total  silence  in  regard  to  the  letter  written  to 
him  by  Williams,  disparaging  the  patent, — make  it,  as  I  said, 
probable,  and,  as  I  may  now  say,  nearly  certain,  that  he  did 
consider  the  patent  worthless. 

At  the  deliberation  just  mentioned,  the  patent  was  objected 
to,  because  in  it,  as  in  others,  the  Parliament  "reserved  a  su- 
preme power  in  all  things."  But  the  parchment  at  the  State 
House  contains  no  such  reservation ;  and,  consequently,  it  is 
either  not  the  patent  spoken  of  in  Winthrop,  or  else  the  speak- 
er's knowledge  of  it  was  too  slight  and  imperfect  to  give  sig- 
nificance or  value  to  any  opinion  he  might  have  entertained  or 
expressed  concerning  it.  If  we  embaace  the  former  branch  of 
this  dilemma, — that  the  State-House  document  is  not  the  one 
spoken  of  in  Winthrop, — then  I  was  right  in  saying  that  it  is 
"  not  mentioned  in  Winthrop,"  and  my  apology  has  been  a 
mistaken  appeal  to  your  clemency.  If,  however,  we  adopt 
the  latter  alternative, — the  ignorance  of  the  speaker,  (as  I  fear 
we  must,  there  being  no  other  than  the  State-House  Patent 
known), — then,  whatever  he  might  have  thought  or  said,  is  not, 
as  Mr.  Deane's  language  implies,  an  argument  for  the  genuine- 
ness or  validity  of  that  instrument. 

Having  thus  answered  the  several  objections  noted  above, 
I  would  call  attention  to  a  further  elucidation  of  the  character 
of  the  document  at  the  State  House.  It  appears  to  have  been 
drawn  up,  as  is  customary,  with  blanks  for  the  date.  Those 
blanks  are  now  filled  up  with  ink  of  a  color,  and  in  handwriting 
of  a  character,  different  from  those  of  the  body  of  the  instru- 
ment ;  showing  that  they  were  so  filled  up  at  a  later  period. 


16  THE   NABBAGANSET   PATENT. 

Regularly,  the  date  of  a  patent  would  be  the  day  on  which  it 
finally  passed  the  Board,  and  was  delivered  for  enrolment.  (18 
Hen.  VI.,  c.  i.)  The  completion  of  that  formal  act  would  be 
the  beginning  of  its  legal  existence  and  force.  An  earlier  date, 

O  G  -D 

or  an  antedate,  would  be  a  falsehood  and  a  fraud.  If  it  were 
intended  to  give  the  patent  a  retro-active  operation,  or  to  grant 
a  title  prior  to  its  date,  that  must  be  expressed  in  the  body  of 
the  instrument,  but  not  in  such  a  way  as  to  falsify  the  execution 
of  the  instrument. 

Now,  the  date  inserted  in  the  Narraganset  Patent  is  the  10th 
of  December,  1643.  That  day  was  Sunday, — a  day,  in  those 
times,  held  so  sacred,  and  kept  with  such  strict  and  reverential 
observance,  that,  on  it  no  Parliamentary  Board  would  venture 
to  assemble  for  secular  business,  however  earnestly  they  might 
have  been  importuned  by  our  reverend  agents,  Thomas  Welde 
and  Hugh  Peters,  to  break  the  Sabbath.  The  patent,  there- 
fore, bears  on  its  face  a  falsity,  which,  while  it  shows  conclu- 
sively of  itself,  independently  of  all  other  proof,  that  this 
instrument  never  passed  the  table,  also  debars  it  from  all  those 
favorable  considerations,  which,  by  law  and  usage,  are  justly 
extended,  prima  facie ,  to  instruments  in  general. 

This  stain  upon  its  character  is  deepened  by  another  circum- 
stance. The  second  signature  in  order  of  place  is  that  of  the 
Earl  of  Manchester ;  and  of  course  it  would  also  be  second  in 
the  order  of  time,  if  the  places  indicated  the  order  in  which  the 
signatures  were  successively  written.  It  is  certain  that  the 
order  of  personal  rank  was  not  adhered  to,  as  in  1643  it  surely 
would  have  been,  had  the  patent  been  leisurely  signed  at  the 
table ;  for  the  signatures  of  Lord  Roberts  and  Sir  Benjamin 
Ruddyer  follow  those  of  commoners.  Now,  there  is  hardly  the 
remotest  possibility  that  the  Earl  of  Manchester  was  in  London 
at  any  time  between  the  2d  of  November  (the  day  when  the 
Board  of  Commissioners  was  created  by  ordinance)  and  the 
10th  of  December,  the  ostensible  date  of  the  patent.  At  that 
time,  he  was  commander  of  the  fourteen  thousand  cavalry 
ordered  to  be  raised  on  the  26th  of  the  preceding  July,  and  was 
actively  engaged  in  the  civil  and  military  superintendence  of 


THE  JfAKRAGAlfSET   PATENT.  17 

the  seven  associated  counties  assigned  to  his  command.  In  his 
letter  of  the  12th  of  October,  giving  Parliament  an  account  of 
his  victory  of  that  day  at  Horncastle  in  Lincolnshire,  he  an- 
nounced his  intention  to  march  immediately  to  Gainsborough 
in  the  same  county,  and  also  to  do  his  best  to  make  a  diversion 
in  favor  of  Hull,  then  besieged  by  the  royal  forces  ;  an  enter- 
prise which,  with  the  heavy  duties  of  his  department,  continued 
to  the  end  of  the  year :  for  we  learn,  from  the  Lord  General 
Essex's  letter  of  the  18th  of  December  to  4he  Committee  of 
Safety,  that  the  greater  part  of  Lord  Manchester's  horse  was 
still  in  Lincolnshire  ;  and  from  Manchester's  own  letter  of  the 
22d  of  December,  that  the  greater  part  of  his  force  was  then 
engaged  against  Gainsborough ;  and  that  his  own  head-quarters 
were  at  that  moment  at  Cambridge,  where  he  was  guarding  St. 
Neots,  Huntington,  and  Cambridge  (ParL  Hist.,  xii.  428,  466, 
475).  I  find  no  proof  of  his  being  in  London  before  the  13th 
of  the  following  January :  when,  as  speaker  pro  tempore  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  he  signed  a  letter  to  the  Comte  D'Harcourt, 
the  French  ambassador.  It  would,  therefore,  hardly  be  possible 
that  he  could  have  signed  the  patent  in  London  earlier  than 
about  a  month  after  the  false  date  of  the  10th  of  December 
(Parl.  Hist,  xiii.  25). 

On  the  other  hand,  supposing  the  patent  to  have  been  sent 
to  search  him  out  somewhere  in  his  seven  counties,  in  despite 
of  the  various  hazards,  uncertainties,  and  delays  incident  to 
times  and  places  of  civil  conflict,  it  would  then  be  doubly  mani- 
fest that  the  signatures  to  the  patent  were  obtained,  not  in  the 
regular  way  at  the  Board,  but  M  under-hand,"  as  imputed,  by 
personal  application,  as  in  the  case  of  a  petition  or  a  subscrip- 
tion-list, at  different  times  and  places:  and  hence  it  would 
almost  inevitably  happen,  that,  in  some  instances,  it  would  not 
be  convenient  or  practicable  for  the  signer  to  affix  his  own  par- 
ticular seal,  bearing-some  distinctive  mark  (his  family  crest  or 
arms),  as  practiced  then  and  from  the  time  of  the  Norman 
Conquest  (Spelman,  Eng.  W.,  ii.  253  ;  Ruddiman,  Introd.,  p. 
97 ;  Black.  Com.,  ii.  805)  ;  and  in  other  instances,  though  the 
signature  might  be  given  as  a  preliminary  approval,  yet  the 


18  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

seal  might  be  withheld  from  prudential  motives,  and  a  convic- 
tion of  the  propriety  of  awaiting  the  regular  deliberations  of 
the  Board,  in  order  to  take  time  to  mature  an  opinion,  and  not 
precipitately  to  pledge  one's  self  to  a  measure  which  it  might 
afterwards  be  desirable  to  recall. 

Under  such  circumstances,  the  omission  of  a  seal,  or  that 
wax,  with  no  impression,  should  remain  instead  of  a  genuine 
seal,  would,  in  one  or  more  instances,  if  not  in  all,  be  very  likely 
to  occur ;  and  the  discovery  of  such  a  capital  defect  would 
suggest,  to  minds  of  a  certain  class,  the  expediency  of  protect- 
ing the  instrument  against  future  scrutiny  by  boldly  cutting 
off  all  the  tags,  whether  they  had  pendent  seals  or  nothing  on 
them.  The  credulity  of  the  world  would  be  counted  on ;  for 
many  persons  would  consider  the  remnant  of  each  tag  as  good 
proof  that  a  genuine  seal  had  once  been  attached  to  it.  That 
opinion  was  avowed  and  maintained,  to  my  certain  knowledge, 
in  regard  to  this  mutilated  document,  before  it  was  known  that 
the  copy  of  it  in  Mr.  Winthrop's  collection  was  in  existence. 
But  those  remnants  prove  nothing :  if  they  do  (as  there  are 
eleven  remnants  of  tags,  and  but  nine  signatures),  what  do  the 
two  surplus  remnants  prove  ?  Just  as  much  as  the  others  : 
merely  that  the  parchment  on  which  the  document  was  written 
was  once  prepared  for  receiving  seals, 'but  not  at  all  that  seals 
were  ever  actually  attached  to  it. 

The  Narraganset  Patent,  in  its  present  state,  and  tainted  as 
it  is  with  an  original  falsity,  would  very  justly  fall  under  Hei- 
neccius's  fourth  class  of  falsified  charters,  which,  as  described 
by  Ruddiman  in  his  "  Introduction  to  Anderson's  Diplomats 
Scotia? "  (§  46),  comprehends  such  as  are  "  so  artfully  cut,  as 
if  the  seals  had  dropped  from  them,  when  there  really  never  had 
been  any  there."  The  fact  that  Heineccius  enumerates  six 
ways  in  which  frauds  on  seals  were  committed  proves  the  fre- 
quency of  the  crime,  and  the  cunning  with  which  it  was  accom- 
plished ;  and  I  know  of  no  reason  why  our  forefathers  or  their 
connections  should  not  have  shared  the  common  exposure  to 
such  impostures. 

We  know  not  when  or  why  the  seals,  if  any,  were  cut  off. 


THE   NARRAGANSET  PATENT.  19 

It  is  said  that  the  certified  Winthrop  copy  proves  that  they 
were  on  in  1662.  But  had  it  so  happened,  that  nothing  but 
the  present  remnants  of  tags  were  extant  at  that  period,  I  ask, 
Would  not  those  remnants  be  as  likely  to  be  accepted  in  1662, 
for  ample  proof  of  the  original  exsitence  of  the  seals,  as  in  1860, 
when  we  know  they  were  so  accepted,  although  there  was  only 
the  mutilated  parchment  to  look  at?  That  age  was  surely 
more  credulous  than  this.  To  say  nothing  of  local  and  per- 
sonal interests,  it  is  certain  that  party  or  sectarian  zeal,  and  the 
extravagant  prejudices  of  the  time,  would  all  have  contributed 
more  powerfully  then  than  now  to  bias  the  judgment  and  belief, 
even  of  the  officials  employed  to  make  the  copy. 

That  copy  also  departs  from  the  original,  both  in  the  order 
and  in  the  orthography  of  the  signatures.  It  does  not  indicate 
the  actual  position  and  places  of  the  several  seals ;  but  on  the 
contrary,  if  we  took  it  for  an  exact  copy,  we  should  not  know 
that  the  seals  were  pendent,  but  should  also  be  led  into  the 
belief,  that  they  were  originally  placed  where  certainly  no  seals 
ever  were  or  could  be  placed  in  the  original  at  the  State  House. 
It  is  clear  that  the  copy  was  first  written  out  with  the  signa- 
tures solely  in  succession.  The  insertion  of  the  words,  "  &  a 
seale,"  after  each  signature,  was  evidently  an  afterthought ;  for 
the  intervals  between  the  signatures  being  narrow,  although 
a  smaller  size  of  handwriting,  and  a  character  for  the  word 
"and,"  after  all  but  the  first  signature,  were  adopted,  in  order 
to  crowd  in  the  words,  "  &  a  seale,"  yet,  in  several  instanceh, 
the  interpolation  overlaps  the  initial  letter  of  the  succeeding 
name,  and  in  one  instance  is  slanted  upward  to  avoid  treading 
upon  the  good  name  of  Sir  Benjamin  Ruddy er,  which  it  does 
not  avoid  after  all. 

However  common  and  justifiable  it  may  be,  at  the  present 
time,  in  this  country,  to  use,  in  similar  cases,  such  general 
expressions  as  "a  seal,"  instead  of  "A«s  seal,"  yet,  from  inex- 
actness, they  are  always  defective,  in  point  of  evidence,  respect- 
ing ancient  sealed  instruments,  and  especially  so  in  regard  to  a 
charter,  emanating,  like  that  in  question,  from  a  Board  of  Com- 
missioners, who,  in  their  public  acts,  were  enjoined  to  use  their 


20  THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 

own  seals.  They  are  only  proof  of  some  seal  or  other,  but  not 
of  a  genuine  seal ;  otherwise,  supposing  George  Downing  to 
have  put  his  crest  and  arms  on  wax  under  each  of  the  signa- 
tures alluded  to,  every  one  of  these  counterfeits  would  be 
metamorphosed  into  a  genuine  seal,  if  full  faith  and  credit  were 
given  to  such  a  certificate  as  the  present. 

On  full  consideration  of  all  these  circumstances,  can  we,  on 
the  strength  of  this  certificate,  be  sure  that  Edward  llawson,  to 
say  nothing  of  some  adroit  interpolator,  did  not  certify  what 
he  believed,  rather  than  what  he  saw,  of  the  seals  ?  or  that,  if 
there,  when  the  copy  was  made,  they  were  the  genuine  par- 
ticular seals  of  the  signers  ?  or,  in  fine,  that  they  were  not  cut 
off,  because  they  were,  some  or  all  of  them,  spurious  ? 

The  conduct  of  the  Massachusetts  authorities  furnishes  little 
evidence  that  they  really  considered  the  patent  to  be  valid. 
A  single  instance,  which  at  first  sight  favors  such  an  inference, 
and  in  which  that  opinion  would  seem  to  be  implied,  is  found 
in  their  letter  to  Williams  of  the  27th  of  August,  1645,  (Mass. 
Rec.,  iii.  49).  But  that  letter  is  cautiously  worded.  Abstain- 
ing from  positive  command,  it  says,  in  substance,  "  We  think 
proper  to  give  you  notice  of  the  charter  we  have  lately  received, 
that  you  may  forbear  to  exercise  jurisdiction,  &c. ;  or  else  ap- 
pear at  our  court,  to  show  by  what  right  you  claim  jurisdiction ; 
or,  in  other  words,  yield  us  the  jurisdiction  quietly,  or  lose  it 
by  coming  into  our  court."  This  has  very  much  the  air  of  a 
politic  device,  especially  as  it  was  the  second  attempt  made  that 
year  to  deter  their  neighbor  colony  from  establishing  a  govern- 
ment under  her  new  charter.  That  its  main  purpose  was 
intimidation  may  be  inferred  from  the  account  given  by  Win- 
throp  of  the  first  attempt,  in  which  he  says,  "Although  they  had 
boasted  to  do  great  *  things  by  virtue  of  their  charter,  yet  they 


*  The  warning  here  alluded  to  produced  the  following  reply,  (Mass.  Arch.,  ii. 
6):- 

"  Our  much  hond  friends  &  country  men — Our  due  respects  here  premised — 
Having  lately  received  a  writing  from  the  right  worshipful  your  counsell  deeply 
concerning  yourselves  and  us,  we  pray  your  honorable  attention  to  our  answers. 

"  First,  A  civil  government  we  honor  and  earnestly  desire  to  live  in  for  all 


THE    NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  21 

dared  not  to  attempt  any  thing,"  (Winth.,  ii.  220).  To  make 
the  letter  more  formidable  before  it  was  despatched,  an  appoint- 
ment was  made  of  two  commissioners,  who  were  to  negotiate 
with  Parliament  about  the  two  conflicting  charters  (Mass.  Rec., 
iii.  48).  This  auxiliary  measure  was  suffered,  and  probably 
intended,  to  expire  at  its  birth.  Saltonstall,  one  of  the  nomi- 
nees, never  went  on  the  mission  ;  the  other  (Captain  George 
Cooke)  never  acted ;  and  no  record  exists  of  any  instructions 
given  them ;  nor  was  any  thing  done,  in  relation  to  agencies  of 
the  kind,  for  more  than  a  year.  The  Massachusetts  authori- 
ties well  knew  that  the  Rhode-Island  or  Providence-Plantations 
Charter  was  the  only  one  recognized  by  Parliament ;  for  that 
had  been  declared  to  them  the  year  before  by  twelve  members 


those  good  endes,  which  are  attainable  •  thereby,  both  of  public  and  private 
nature. 

"  This  desire  caused  us  humbly  to  sue  for  a  charter  from  our  mother  State  & 
government,  but  as  we  believe  your  consciences  are  persuaded  to  govern  our 
soules  as  well  as  our  bodies,  and,  yourselves  will  say,  we  have  cause  to  indeav- 
our  to  preserve  our  soules  and  liberties  which  your  consciences  must  necessa- 
rily deprive  us  of,  and  either  cause  greater  distractions  and  molestations  to 
yourselves  &  us  at  home,  or  cause  our  further  removal  &  miseryes. 

"  Thirdly,  "Wee  cannot  but  wonder  that  being  now  found  in  a  posture  of  gov- 
ernment from  the  same  authority,  imto  which  you  &  wee  equally  subject,  you 
should  desire  us  to  forbeare  the  exercise  of  such  a  government,  without  an 
expresse  from  that  authority  directed  to  us. 

"  And  we  the  rather  wonder  because  our  charter  as  it  was  first  granted  and 
first  established,  soe  it  was  also  expressly  signified  unto  you  all,  in  a  letter  from 
divers  Lords  &  Commons,  at  the  sending  out  of  our  charter,  out  of  a  loving 
respect  both  to  yourselves  &  us. 

"  Besides  you  may  please  to  be  informed  that  his  Excellency  the  Lo:  Admi- 
ral hath  lately  divers  times  bene  pleased  to  owne  us  under  the  notion  of 
Providence  Plantations,  and  that  he  hath  signified  unto  us  (as  we  can  shew 
you  in  writinge)  the  desire  of  Plymouth  to  infringe  our  Charter,  but  his  own 
favorite  resolution  not  only  to  maintain  our  charter  to  his  utmost  power,  but 
also  to  gratify  us  with  any  favors  &c.  In  all  which  respects  we  see  not  how 
we  may  dare  to  yealde  ourselves  delinquents  and  lyable  to  answer  in  your 
courte  way,  as  your  writing  seems  to  imports,  why  we  cast  not  away  such 
noble  favours  and  grace  unto  us.  It  is  true  that  divers  amongst  us  expresse 
their  desire  of  composing  this  controversy  between  yourselves  and  us,  but  con- 
sidering that  we  have  not  only  receaved  a  challenge  from  yourselves,  but  also 
from  Mr.  Fenwick  and  also  from  Plymouth  and  also  from  some  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  Marquis  Hamilton  (of  all  which  claims  we  never  heard  until  the 
arrival  of  our  Charter)  we  judge  it  necessary  to  employ  our  messengers  and 


22  THE  NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

of  Parliament,  peers  and  Commoners,  in  the  letter  brought  by 
Roger  Williams,  addressed  to  the  Governor,  assistants,  and  the 
rest  of  their  friends  in  Massachusetts  (Winth.,  ii.  193).  Ac- 
cordingly, in  the  instructions  to  Winslow,  who  went  out  the 
next  year  as  commissioner,  nothing  whatever  is  said  of  the 
Narraganset  Patent :  and  Winslow,  so  far  from  claiming  any 
part  of  the  territory  for  Massachusetts,  claimed  for  Plymouth 
all  that  Massachusetts  had  pretended  to  be  hers,  and  much 
more,  without  regard  either  to  the  patent,  or  to  that  absurd 
figment,  the  title  by  submission  of  the  English  and  natives  at 
Pawtuxet  and  Shawomet ;  and  also,  it  must  be  confessed,  with- 
out regard  to  his  own  personal  and  official  admissions  previ- 


agents  unto  the  head  and  fountain  of  all  these  streams  and  there  humbly  to 
prostrate  ourselves  &  caiise  for  a  finall  sentence  &  determination — and  this  we 
are  immediately  preparing  to  do  without  any  secret  reservations  or  delays  not 
doubting  but  yourselves  will  feel  satisfied  with  this  our  course :  And  in  the 
interim  although  you  have  not  bene  pleased  to  admit  us  unto  considerations 
of  what  concerns  the  whole  country  as  you  have  others  of  our  countrymen,  yet 
we  cannot  but  humbly  professe  our  readynesse  to  attend  all  such  friendly  and 
neighborly  courses  &  ever  rest  your  assured  in  all  services  of  love. 

"  HENEY  WATSON  Sec'T* 
"  The  Colonie  of  Providence  Plantations 

Assembled  at  Newport  9th  6mo  1645  " 

Address  on  the  outside  : — 
''  To  the  Right  Woshplsand  their  much  Honn'd  Friends  and 

Countrymen.    The  General  Court  of  the  Mattachusetts  Colonie 
assembled  at  Boston." 

It  appears  from  a  note  on  this  letter,  under  Winthrop's  signature,  that  it  was 
submitted  by  the  magistrates  to  the  consideration  of  the  deputies  on  the  16th 
of  the  following  October, — a  fortnight  after  the  session  began. 

Neither  this  letter,  nor  the  brief  account  in  Winthrop's  Journal  of  the  warn- 
ing which  occasioned  it,  contains  any  reference  to  the  Narraganset  Patent.  It 
is  therefore  safe  to  infer  that  the  patent  was  not  known,  and  dkl  not  arrive  in 
this  country,  till  on  or  just  before  the  27th  day  of  August,  1645, — the  date  of  the 
letter  to  Williams,  in  which  it  is  mentioned  as  "  lately  received."  If  Welde 
had  believed  it  to  be  a  good  instrument,  or  of  any  value,  can  any  satisfactory 
reason  be  giveu  for  his  withholding  it  for  nearly  a  year  and  three-quarters 
after  its  date? 


*  A  recent  careful  examination  ot  the  original  document  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Boston,  shows  the  name  of  the  Secretary  appended,  is  "  Henry  Walton/'  "  plainly  and  distinctly 
written,"  and  not  Henry  Watson. — ED. 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  V6 

ously  made,  verbally  and  in  writing  (Winth.,  ii.  295—801 ;  1 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  i.  276;  Knowles,  405,  406;  Clarke,  111 
Newes,  ix.;  R.  I.  Rec.,  50,  51 ;  Backus,  i.  72-74  ;  Wins.  Hyp. 
Unm.  Ep.  Ded.,  82). 

This  view  of  the  opinion  actually  held  by  the  Massachusetts 
authorities  respecting  the  unsoundness  of  the  patent  is  con- 
firmed by  their  total  disregard  to  its  provisions  in  the  grant, 
made  by  the  General  Court  in  the  month  of  October  following 
the  date  of  the  letter  to  Williams,  of  the  land  and  houses  of 
Gorton  and  his  companions  at  Shawomet  to  the  Braintree 
petitioners.  That  act  of  spoliation  not  only  trampled  the  Prov- 
idence-Plantations Charter  under  foot,  but  was  a  direct  contra- 
vention of  the  final  clause  of  the  Narraganset  Patent,  which 
"  excepted  and  reserved  from  the  premises  granted  all  lands, 
&c.,  theretofore  lawfully  granted  and  in  present  possession, 
held  and  enjoyed  by  any  of  his  Majestie's  Protestant  subjects." 
Whether  the  words  "  lawfully  granted "  were  construed  as 
confined  to  grants  by  English  authority,  or  as  also  embracing 
Indian  grants  or  purchases,  the  tenor  of  that  clause  was  to  pro- 
tect English  Protestants  in  their  lawful  possessions,  and  to 
exclude  those  possessions  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  patentee 
colony.  If  the  former,  as  the  strictly  legal  interpretation,  were 
adopted,  Massachusetts  would  be  bound,  by  her  own  previous 
acts  and  judicial  decisions,  to  consider  the  whole  country  as 
"  heretofore  lawfully  granted  "  by  charter  "  either  to  Plymouth 
or  to  Mr.  Fenwick,"  as  Winthrop  has  it  (Winth.,  ii.  143).  If 
Indian  titles  or  grants  were  also  reckoned  lawful  grants,  then 
Rhode  Island,  Providence,  Shawomet,  and  every  English  settle- 
ment or  homestead,  within  the  patent,  bought  of  an  Indian 
chief,  would  be  protected  against  all  exercise  of  jurisdiction  on 
the  part  not  only  of  Massachusetts,  but  of  the  other  colonies 
likewise.  In  fact,  these  Indian  grants  or  purchases  were 
recognized  as  lawful  grants  by  the  highest  authority  (the  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Plantations)  in  the  Providence-Planta- 
tions Charter  of  1644.  In  the  preamble  of  that  charter,  they  are 
mentioned,  approved,  encouraged,  and,  moreover,  held  so  all- 
sufficient,  as  to  supersede  the  necessity  of  any  grant  whatever 


24  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

of  the  soil ;  and  the  whole  grant  in  the  body  of  the  instrument 
is,  therefore,  actually  restricted  to  the  dominion  alone.  This 
charter  was  enrolled,  and  accessible  to  the  public ;  and  the 
rulers  of  Massachusetts,  who  were  legally  bound  to  recognize 
it,  might  easily — and,  from  its  importance  to  them,  probably 
did,  through  their  friends  in  England,  or  even  Khode  Island — 
obtain  a  copy  of  it,  or  full  information  of  its  tenor,  It  could 
not  have  escaped  them,  that  the  dispossession  of  Gorton  and 
his  companions  was  in  direct  conflict  with  the  tenor  of  the 
Narraganset  Patent :  and  it  is  equally  clear,  that  such  a  viola- 
tion of  its  provisions  is  irreconcileable  with  the  supposition, 
that  they  had  any  belief  in  its  validity.  Accordingly,  when 
Plymouth,  relying  upon  her  imaginary  charter-right  to  Shaw- 
omet,  withstood  this  very  Braintree  grant,  they  placed  the  vin- 
dication of  their  contemplated  spoliation  upon  the  authority  of 
a  former  order  of  the  Commissioners  for  the  United  Colonies, 
and  avoided  all  reference  whatever  to  the  Narraganset  Patent. 
Indeed,  they  could  hardly  fail  to  see  that  its  final  clause  re- 
duced it  to  a  mere  phantom  of  a  charter,  not  worth  acceptance. 
Were  the  claims  of  the  other  colonies  extinguished,  it  would 
confer,  in  the  largest  sense,  nothing  beyond  a  contingent  or 
reversionaiy  title  to  such  territory,  as,  being  unappropriated  by 
English  settlers,  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  aboriginal  lords 
of  the  soil.  They  also  well  knew  that  the  claims  alluded  to 
had  been  effectually  extinguished  by  the. Providence-Planta- 
tions Charter,  the  only  one  recognized'by  Parliament. 

The  next  year  (1646),  they  received,  from  the  Commission- 
ers for  Foreign  Plantations,  an  order  containing  a  fresh  recog- 
nition of  that  charter,  and  permanently  reinstating  Gorton  and 
his  companions  in  their  former  possessions.  This  order  was 
accompanied  with  a  passport  of  the  same  date  (loth  of  May), 
in  favor  of  Gorton,  Holden,  Greene,  and  other  late  inhabitants, 
&c.,  signed  by  Warwick  and  nine  other  commissioners,  includ- 
ing Mr.  George  Fenwick  himself,  requiring  the  governor  and 
assistants  to  give  them  a  free  and  unobstructed  passage 
through  any  part  of  Massachusetts  to  their  former  abode.  In 
the  following  year  (1647),  Winslow,  having  claimed  Shawo- 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  25 

met  particularly,  as  well  as  the  whole  territory,  for  Plymouth, 
and  having  alleged  that  the  proceedings  against  Gorton  were 
authorized  by  the  four  confederate  governments,  the  Plantation 
Commissioners  wrote  to  those  governmants  two  letters,  signed, 
as  before,  by  Fenwick,  in  which  the  charter  is  again  referred 
to  as  granted  by  themselves ;  and  the  injunctions  in  favor  of 
Gorton  are  reiterated,  as  not  to  be  disregarded  until  the  colo- 
nies should  prove  that  Shawomet  was  within  the  limits  of  any 
of  their  charters.  This,  Plymouth,  the  only  claimant  left,  never 
could  do  ;  and  accordingly,  after  \vaiting  four  years  in  the  vain 
expectation  of  being  furnished  with  the  satisfactory  proof  re- 
quired, Winslow  indignantly  complains  of  the  disgraceful  posi- 
tion in  wrhich  he  has  been  placed  by  the  protracted  inattention 
shown  by  his  principals  at  home  to  the  order  of  the  commis- 
sioners, and  says,  "  I  shall  be  more  wary  hereafter  how  I  engage 
in  business  of  that  nature,"  (Winth.,ii.  272,  280,  318-20;  Haz., 
ii.  178  ;  Hutch.  Coll.,  229). 

The  magistrates,  whether  designedly  or  not,  avoid  all  mention 
of  the  Narraganset  Patent  in  their  records.  Even  the  letter  to 
Williams,  undoubtedly  drawn  up  by  themselves,  appears  only 
in  the  records  of  the  deputies.  Those  of  the  magistrates  con- 
tain the  order  for  dispossessing  Gorton  and  his  fellow-proprie- 
tors, and  show,  that,  in  the  eagerness  of  their  zeal  for  expelling 
these  heretics,  they  did  not  wait  for  the  deputies'  approval  of 
the  letter,  but,  virtually  abandoning  the  only  ground  on  which 
that  letter  could  be  sustained,  passed  the  predatory  Braintree 
grant  six  days  before  the  deputies'  approval  was  given.  The 
three  kindred  subjects — the  appointment  of  new  commissioners 
for  England,  the  pro-validity  letter  to  Williams,  and  the  anti- 
validity  grant  of  Gorton's  lands — were  all,  in  spite  of  their 
incongruity,  simultaneously  agreed  to  by  the  deputies.  The 
Narraganset  Patent  must  have  been  very  unacceptable  to  the 
rulers  of  Massachusetts,  because  the  final  clause,  above  men- 
tioned, stood  in  the  way  of  their  favorite  projects  of  securing  an 
outlet  to  the  ocean  by  Narraganset  Bay,  and  of  curbing  the 
Narragansets  and  their  fellow-countrymen  (who  had  fled  from 
themselves  to  take  refuse  in  the  tenderer  mercies  of  these 


26  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

heathen  savages  of  the  wilderness),  by  the  establishment  of  a 
strong  plantation  at  Shawomet,  to  which  they  had  set  up  a  title 
sufficiently  colorable  to  win,  for  the  moment,  the  compliant 
favor  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies.  But  had 
the  patent  been  deemed  valid,  it  is  very  probable  that  it  would 
have  been  so  construed  or  misconstrued  as  to  confer  the  same 
power  over  Gorton  and  the  rest  of  the  proscribed  in  Rhode 
Island  as  had  been  cruelly  exercised  under  the  original  Massa- 
chusetts Charter  in  the  banishment  of  Williams,  Wheelwright, 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  others,  and  atrociously  and  unlawfully, 
once  before,  on  Gorton  and  his  ten  fellow-victims.  Authenti- 
cated facts  indicate  that  the  patent  had  been  an  offence  in  the 
eyes  of  the  rulers  almost  from  the  first.  Before  it  was  actually 
brandished  as  a  sceptre  of  iron  over  the  head  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams, we  find  from  our  records,  that,  at  the  first  General  Court 
after  it  was  received,  Welde,  the  reputed  father  of  the  patent, 
who,  six  months  previous,  had  so  much  influence  as  to  obtain 
the  appointment  of  Pococke  as  a  colleague,  was  ordered,  with 
his  fellow-commissioner  Peters,  to  return  home.  The  harsh- 
ness of  this  recall  was  aggravated  by  the  immediate  appoint- 
ment of  the  two  new  commissioners,  Saltonstall  and  Cooke ; 
and  by  the  mention,  at  the  same  time,  of  the  two  charters  for 
government,  &c.,  in  the  lands  adjoining  Narraganset  Bay,  as 
the  special  subject  of  negotiation,  which,  by  implication,  the 
displaced  agents  were  deemed  no  longer  fit  to  manage. 
Wherever  the  commissioners  are  referred  to,  Pococke  is  men- 
tioned by  name,  while  Peters  and  Welds  are  slighted  off  anony- 
mously as  "  other  "  or  "  the  rest  of  the  commissioners."  This 
occurs  even  in  the  magistrates'  vote  of  thanks,  unconfirmed  by 
the  deputies,  for  "  their  care  and  pains  in  our  affairs,  and  par- 
ticularly that  with  Alderman  Bartley."  It  is  significant,  that 
they  were  considered  less  deserving  of  thanks  for  the  patent 
than  for  an  affair  which  is  believed  to  have  been  chiefly  the 
work  of  Sir  Henry  Vane,  (Winth.,  ii.  201,  248  ;  Mass.  Rec.,  ii. 
137,  138  ;  iii.  48). 

When  Welde  and  Peters  were  sent  out,  in  1641,  the  Massa- 
chusetts authorities  were  encouraged  to  expect  great  advan- 


THE   NARRAGANSET    PATENT.  27 

tages  from  the  Parliament,  to  which  the  king  had  just  before, 
in  the  language  of  Winthrop,  "  left  so  great  liberty,"  (Winth., 
ii.  25,  42,  98).  A  confirmation  of  the  Massachusetts  Charter 
was  obtained,  and,  in  1643,  an  ordinance  also,  which  relieved 
New  England  from  English  customs-duties  on  exports  for  actual 
use,  and  on  imports  of  New-England  growth.  But,  in  that  and 
the  following  year,  Welde  was  occupied  in  polemical  labors, — 
his  publications  concerning  the  Antinomians  of  New  England, 
and  William  Rathband's  censures  of  the  New-England  churches. 
Peters  devoted  his  chief  attention  to  public  affairs,  and  probably 
found  his  chaplaincy  under  General  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  often 
incompatible  with  the  efficient  discharge  of  his  duty  as  com- 
missioner. In  September,  1644,  Roger  Williams,  under  the 
sanction  of  the  letter,  mentioned  above,  from  lords  and  com- 
moners in  Parliament,  came  to  Boston,  from  which  he  had  been 
exiled  eight  years  before  ;  and  brought  the  mortifying  proof, 
that  he  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  charter  that  would  pro- 
tect Rhode  Island,  as  far  as  law  could  do  it,  from  the  intolerant 
antipathies  and  aggressions  of  the  rulers  of  her  more  powerful 
neighbor.  The  bitterness  of  this  disappointment  was  naturally 
poured  out  upon  the  heads  of  the  more  supine  and  unsuccessful 
agents  of  Massachusetts.  Some  of  the  censures  inflicted  on 
them  are  still  extant :  many  more  will  always  remain  unknown. 
Winthrop  accuses  Welde  of  having  "  lost  or  forgotten  "  papers 
sent  out  to  him ;  and  the  records  mention  that  "  we  had  re- 
ceived great  detriment,  because  we  had  none  in  England  to 
inform  Parliament  in  our  behalf,"  (Winth.,  ii.  272  ;  Mass.  Rec., 
ii.  161).  It  is  probable  that  Welde,  in  self-defence  at  last,  and 
near  the  date  of  the  letter  to  Williams  (27th  August,  1645), 
sent  out  this  abortive  patent,  not  perhaps  to  be  used  as  a  legal 
instrument  (for  he  knew  its  imperfections),  but  to  prove  that 
he  had  not  been  idle,  and  had  nearly  succeeded  in  his  efforts  to 
perfect  the  patent.  Hence,  after  it  had  once,  as  an  experiment, 
been  held  up  in  terrorem,  and  Williams,  in  turn,  had  communi- 
cated to  Winthrop  "  what  he  believed  weighty  and  righteous," 
the  authorities  were  ashamed  to  make  use  of  it,  and  wisely 
preferred  to  let  it  sink  into  oblivion. 


'28  THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 

Thenceforward,  in  maintaining  their  previous  pretensions 
to  jurisdiction  in  the  Rhode  Island  Colony  until  this  pseudo 
patent  was  brought  forward  to  subserve  the  purposes  of  the 
Atherton  patentees,*  they  chose  to  rely  upon  the  alleged  titles 


*  The  Winthrop  copy  of  the  Narragansett  Patent  was  probably  first  shown 
to  President  Brenton;  and  in  the  following  November,  with  Edward  Hutchin- 
son's  letter  of  the  3d  of  that  month,  was  dispatched  to  Governor  Winthrop  in 
London,  to  enable  him  to  put  "  at  rest"  Mr.  Clarke,  the  Commissioner  of  Rhode 
Island,  who  strenuously  withstood  the  efforts  of  Winthrop  to  complete  the 
Connecticut  Charter  in  such  a  way  as  to  deprive  Rhode  Island  of  the  Narra- 
ganset  Country.  Hutchinson  says,  "  By  Sir  Thomas  Temple  and  Captain  Scot, 
I  perceive  that  Mr.  Clarke  is  not  yet  at  rest.  We  have  a  patent  from  the  same 
commissioners  of  an  earlier  date,  which  I  now  send."  In  the  preceding  sum- 
mer, Simon  Bradstreet  and  the  Rev.  John  Norton  had  been  in  London  as 
Commissioners  of  Massachusetts;  and  although  Bradstreet,  both  in  his  public 
capacity  and  from  private  interest  as  a  co-proprietor  in  the  Atherton  Company, 
might  be  expected  to  defend  the  rights  of  this  Colony  and  of  the  company  in 
every  justifiable  way,  yet  it  appears  from  the  same  letter  that  he  never  men- 
tioned the  Narraganset  Patent  to  Winthrop.  Hutchinson  excuses  this  extra- 
ordinary silence  by  saying,  "  Mr.  Bradstreet  did  not  speak  of  it,  because  it  was 
in  your  patent;  and,  being  in  the  four  United  Colonies,  questioned  not  a  fair 
correspondence  in  it."  (Trumb.  Papers  xxii.  No.  33). 

Winthrop  probably  learned  from  Clarke,  that  the  copy  of  the  patent  sent 
was  not  worth  the  paper  it  was  written  on;  but  it  was  neither  honorable  nor 
ingenuous  in  Hutchinson  to  leave  Winthrop  blindly  to  grope  his  way  in  the 
use  of  this  document,  by  withholding  from  him  all  knowledge  of  the  fact,  that 
it  had  been  shown  by  Hutchinsou  himself  to  Brenton,  the  friend  of  Winthrop, 
(id.  No.  35;  and  Mass.  Arch,  ut  supra),  and  by  him  pronounced  as  "not  fairly 
got,"  and  "  not  registered  in  any  court  in  England."  But  Hutchinson,  though 
a  gallant  soldier  and  adorned  with  many  estimable  qualities,  was  apparently 
of  the  school  which  adopts  for  its  motto,  "  All  is  fair  in  politics."  He  was  him- 
self the  chief  manager,  in  this  country,  of  the  affairs  of  the  Atherton  Company. 
The  special  agent  in  England  was  his  correspondent  and  "unceremonious 
friend,"  Captain  John  Scot,  who,  after  many  great  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  had 
risen  to  considerable  wealth,  and  insinuated  himself  into  the  good  graces  of 
the  "  men  who  steered  "  both  in  the  four  United  Colonies  and  in  England. 
That  Hutchinson  himself  was  not  too  scrupulous  to  wink  at  whatever  expedi- 
ents Scot  might  make  use  of  in  England  for  the  good  of  the  company,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact,  that  eighteen  months  after  this  pseudo  patent  was  foisted 
upon  the  pure  and  unsuspecting  Winthrop,  and  near  the  day  when  Scot  was 
convicted  at  Hartford  of  perjury,  forgery  and  many  other  things,  Edward 
Hutchinson  was  fined  by  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  ten  pounds  for 
putting  in  more  than  one  vote  on  the  day  of  election  (Mass.  Rec.  iv  pt.  ii  108). 

From  Scot's  account  of  himself,  in  a  petition  to  the  king,  (which,  if  untrue, 
was  susceptible  of  speedy  disproof,)  and  from  our  own  records,  it  appears  that 
he  was  the  son  of  an  Englishman  of  some  fortune,  who  aided  the  king  by  an 
advance  of  fourteen  thousand  three  hundred  pounds,  and  lost  his  life  in  his 
service.  For  cutting  the  bridles  and  girths  of  the  Paliamentary  horses  at 


THE    NARKAGANSET   PATENT.  29 

by  conquest    and   submission,    although    such   titles   divested 
their  sovereign,  rightful  or  de  facto,  of  the  acknowledged  para- 


Turnham  Greene,  when  the  king's  forces  were  at  Brentford,  (14th  November, 
1642),  he  was  brought  many  times  before  a  Parliamentary  Committee,  to  whom 
he  says  a  gift  of  five  hundred  pounds  was  paid  "  to  prevent  further  mischief;" 
and  was  finally  sent  to  New  England  under  the  care  of  Edward  Downing, 
then  in  England,  of  whose  treatment  of  him  he  complains  as  perfidious  (Hutch. 
Coll.,  380. )  He  probably  arrived,  with  other  children  brought  by  Mr.  Downing, 
in  the  beginning  of  September,  1(543;  and  for  the  care  of  whom  a  committee  of 
four  was  appointed,  and  required  "  to  dispose  of  the  children,  to  call  for  their 
beds,  and  to  see  that  satisfaction  be  procured  and  paid  in  "  (Mass.  Bee.,  ii.  45). 
The  next  year,  13th  November  (id.,  89),  Mr.  Downing  was  called  upon  to  give 
an  account  of  the  children  taken  into  the  ship,  their  names,  where  landed,  and 
to  whom  delivered.  Funds,  and  perhaps  Scot's  five  hundred  pounds,  were 
placed  in  Downing's  hands  on  account  of  the  children,  and  received  by  the 
committee,  as  appears  from  the  Court's  order  to  the  committee  to  pay  Captain 
Cooke,  soldiers,  &c.,  who  went  to  seize  Gorton's  company,  out  of  the  Commit- 
tee's money,  which  was  to  be  "repaid  when  it  came  in." 

Scot  was  placed  by  Downing  with  his  neighbor  Laurence  Southwick,  who 
afterwards,  with  all  his  family,  suffered  imprisonment,  whipping,  and  ruinous 
fines,  during  the  Quaker  persecution;  and,  in  1659,  was  banished  with  his  aged 
wife.  In  May,  1648,  the  General  Court  ordered  that  John  Scot  should  serve 
his  master  so  much  longer,  after  his  term  of  service  expired,  "as  should  be  well 
worth  thirty-five  shillings,"  or  satisfy  his  master  in  some  other  way.  After 
this, "  being,"  as  he  says  in  his  petition,  "obliged  to  court  any  employment  to 
acquire  a  livelihood,"  he  went  to  Long  Island,  of  which,  as  his  petition  states, 
"  he  purchased  near  one-third  part." 

In  1654,  during  the  war  between  England  and  Holland,  the  Dutch  settje- 
ments  on  Long  Island,  as  well  as  on  the  main  land,  having  been  much  harassed 
by  frequent  incursions  and  robberies  committed  by  nocturnal  marauding  par- 
ties, the  Dutch  authorities,  knowing  that  such  proceedings  were  not  sanctioned 
by  the  Colonies  generally,  whose  interest  in  an  illicit  trade  with  the  former  led 
them  to  adopt  a  neutral  policy,  ordered  the  arrest  of  suspected  parties;  and, 
under  this  order,  John  Scot  and  five  others  were  arrested,  and  sent  to  New 
Amsterdam,  where  they  were  examined,  and,  after  a  short  detention,  dis- 
charged (Brodhead,  579). 

In  the  same  year,  Captain  Nathaniel  Silvester,  of  Shelter  Island,  brought  an 
action  of  defamation  against  Scot  and  his  neighbor  John  Yongs  (probably 
eldest  son  of  the  minister  of  Southold);  but  on  John  Yongs  bringing  a  counter- 
action of  the  same  sort,  in  wlii'ih  John  Scot  might  possibly  be  a  formidable 
witness,  the  action  was  settled,  by  private  agreement  (N.  Hav.  Eec.  ii.  89,  92). 

Iij  1659,  his  aged  master,  Laurence  Southwick,  with  his  wife  Cassandra, 
who  had  both  been  banished  from  Massachusetts,  (Mass.  Eec.,  iv.  pt.  i.  367), 
in  June  of  that  year,  took  refuge  at  Shelter  Island,  then  owned  by  Captain 
Silvester,  Scot's  former  antagonist ;  and  there,  soon  after,  exhausted  by  their 
sufferings  under  a  cruel  persecution,  and  their  consequent  indigence  and  grief, 
they  died  within  three  days  of  each  other  (Bishop's  N.  Eng.  Judged,  pt.  i.  89). 

In  1660,  Oct.  6,  Scot  "  caused  much  embarrassment  to  the  people  of  South- 


30  THE    NAKRAGANSET   PATENT. 

mount  right  to  the  soil  and  dominion,  and  arrogated  powers 
of  which  their   chartered   corporation  was  legally   incapable 


ampton."  They  were  originally  emigrants  from  Lynn,  Mass.;  so  near  the 
scene  of  Scot's  apprenticeship,  that  he  was  enabled  to  give  them  interesting 
news  of  the  persons  and  places  they  had  left  behind.  They  bought  of  him 
lands,  which,  he  said,  he  had  bought  of  the  Indians ;  but,  after  much  litigation, 
the  conveyances  were  found  fraudulent  and  void  (.Brodhead,  671). 

In  1661,  he  was  in  London,  and  perhaps  in  the  preceding  year ;  drawn  thither 
with  his  former  fellow-prisoner,  George  Baxter,  by  the  news  of  the  restoration. 
He  returned  in  the  autumn  of  the  following  year,  with  Sir  Thomas  Tem- 
ple. Hutchinson,  in  his  letter  of  the  3d  November,  1662,  mentions  him,  together 
with  Sir  Thomas,  to  Wmthrop,  as  the  channel  through  which  he  derived  the 
information,  originating,  no  doubt,  with  Winthrop,  "that"  Mr.  Clarke  "was 
not  yet  at  rest."  He  returned  almost  immediately  to  London,  and  might  have 
been  the  bearer  of  the  Winthrop  copy  of  the  patent  which  accompanied  that 
letter  (Trumbull  Papers,  xxii.  No.  33). 

From  Scot's  letter  of  the  29th  of  April  following,  to  Edward  Hutchinson 
(id.,  No.  35),  we  find  that  he  had  been  laboring  in  vain  to  "put  Mr.  Clarke  at 
rest,"  through  the  instrumentality  of  Winthrop,  who,  he  says,  "  was  very  averse 
to  my  prosecuting  your  affaires ;  he  having  had  much  trouble  with  Mr.  Clarke 
while  he  remained  in  England."  But,  as  Winthrop  would  not  be  a  tool,  and 
was  no  longer  an  obstacle  to  the  prosecution  of  Hutchinson's  Atherton-Com- 
pany  affairs,  Scot  determined  to  encounter  the  task  assigned  him,  by  himself 
and  in  his  own  way. 

The  grand  object  was  to  procure  a  royal  letter,  which  would  place  the  Nar- 
raganset  lands  claimed  by  the  company  under  the  authority  and  special  pro- 
tection of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  Rhode 
Island.  To  obtain  this  letter,  as  soon  as  Winthrop  had  left  the  Downs,  "  a  po- 
tent gentleman,"  as  Scot  calls  him,  had  been  taken  "into  the  Society;"  and  a 
petition  had  been  preferred  by  Scot  "  against  Clarke,  &c.,  as  enimys  to  the 
peace  and  well-being  of  his  Majestys  good  subjects;"  and,  to  make  more  sure  of 
the  royal  letter  asked  for  in  the  petition,  curiosities  to  the  value  of  £60  had 
been  brought  "  to  gratify  persons  that  are  powerful." 

The  "  potent  gentleman"  was  Thomas  Chiffinch,— the  "  noble  Mr.  Chiffinch," 
to  whom  Scot  sent  his  "  service  "  the  next  year,  in  his  letter  to  the  Secretary 
Williamson  (N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.,  iii.  48);  the  court  pimp;  the  willing  abettor  of 
every  vile  court  intrigue ;  the  man  who,  to  furnish  assurance  of  the  royal  sanc- 
tion, contrived  the  interviews  between  Charles  II.  and  Dangerfield,  the  assas- 
sin from  Newgate,  hired  to  murder  the  discarded  Premier  Shaftsbury;  and  who 
afterwards  stealthily  admitted  the  Catholic  confessor  to  the  dying  monarch 
(Life  of  Shaftsb.,  141,  ed.  1683;  Burnet,  O.  T.,  1685). 

Scot's  efforts  were  crowned  with  complete  success.  Chiffinch,  and  the 
"  powerful  persons  "  who  were  gratified  with  the  £60  worth  of  curiosities,  "  ac- 
complished the  business  "  of  Hutchinson  and  his  Atherton  associates.  On  the 
21st  of  June,  1663,  the  expected  letter  was  signed.  The  king  was  probably  both 
ignorant  of  its  import,  and  indifferent  to  it;  or,  as  on  most  other  like  occasions, 
relied  upon  the  account  given  him  by  his  constant  attendants.  The  letter  was 
addressed  to  the  Governors  and  Assistants  of  the  Massachusetts,  Plymouth, 
New  Haven,  and  Connecticut  Colonies.  In  the  preamble,  the  Atherton  asso- 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 


31 


(Mass.  Eec.,  iv.  pt.  ii.   174-7).      The  lamentable  principle  of 
intolerance,  which  too  many  of  them,  in  the  spirit  of  the  age, 


dates,  with  Thomas  Chiffinch  at  their  head,  and  John  Scot  next,  are  represented 
as  "just  proprietors  of  the  Narraganset  Country,"  and  as  "  desirous  to  improve 
it  into  an  English  Colony,  ...  to  the  enlargement  of  our  Empire  and  the  com- 
mon good  of  our  subjects;"  yet  "  daily  disturbed  and  unjustly  molested  in  their 
possession  and  laudable  endeavors  by  certain  unreasonable  &  turbulent 
spirits  of  Providence  Colony,  .  .  .  to  the  great  scandal  of  justice  &  government, 
and  the  imminent  Discouragement  of  that  hopeful  plantation." 

The  proprietors  were  "  effectually "  recommended  by  the  king  to  the 
"  neighborly  kindness  and  protection  "  of  the  colonial  rulers ;  "  to  be  permitted 
peaceably  to  improve  their  colony  &  plantation ;"  .  .  .  and,  "  on  all  occasions," 
to  be  assisted  "  against  such  unjust  oppressions  and  molestations,  that  so  they 
may  be  secured  in  the  full  and  peaceable  enjoyment  of  their  said  country,  ac- 
cording to  the  right  and  title  they  have  to  it."  .  .  .  This  extraordinary  mandate 
was  a  perversion  of  the  character  and  facts  of  the  Atherton  controversy,  as 
well  as  a  virtual  sanction  of  the  unwarrantable  proceedings  of  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut,  in  regard  to  lands  lying  within  the  chartered  limits  and  sole 
jurisdiction  of  Rhode  Island.  It  not  only  ignored  those  proceedings  and  the 
still  existing  charter  of  Rhode  Island,  but  the  signal  and  important  fact,  that 
New  Haven,  included  with  the  other  colonies  in  its  address,  was,  at  the  time, 
a  political  nonentity,  having  been  absorbed  by  Connecticut  as  a  part  of  her 
own  territory,  defined  by  her  charter  of  the  10th  of  May  in  the  preceding  year. 
It  also  substantially  set  aside  the  agreement  made  between  Winthrop  and 
Clarke,  under  which  the  Atherton  Company,  in  the  exercise  of  its  stipulated 
right  of  option,  had  already  placed  itself  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Connecticut, 
by  placing  it  anew  under  the  special  protection  of  the  four  colonies  (N.  Hav. 
Rec  ,  ii.  511,  525;  Hazard,  ii.  498). 

This  letter  was  countersigned  by  Bennet,  soon  after  Lord  Arlington,  the 
enemy,  and  patron  of  all  the  enemies,  of  Clarendon,  who  undoubtedly  was  kept 
in  profound  ignorance  that  there  was  such  a  document  in  existence.  That  this 
was  so,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that,  only  seventeen  days  after  the  date 
of  the  letter  in  question,  Clarendon  passed,  under  the  Great  Seal,  the  Royal 
Charter  of  Rhode  Island,  in  which  the  agreement  was  recognized,  arid  the  in- 
junctions of  the  letter  practically  annulled. 

That  the  means  by  which  the  letter  had  been  procured  were  known  to  the 
Atherton  associates,  was  a  matter  of  course;  and  it  was  only  natural  that  they 
should  become  known  to  many.  The  circumstance  that  Scot's  letter  to  Hutch- 
inson  was  placed  among  the  papers  in  the  collection  of  Governor  Trumbull,  is 
a  confirmation  of  this  supposition ;  which  may  account  in  part  for  the  anxiety 
displayed,  at  a  later  period,  by  the  governments  of  the  other  colonies  in  Scot's 
behalf,  when  arrested  by  Connecticut.  But  the  royal  letter  was  received,  on 
Scot's  return,  with  none  the  less  readiness.  New  Haven  made  it  the  foundation 
of  a  renewed  but  unavailing  resistance  to  the  measures  adopted  by  Connecti- 
cut to  enforce  the  union.  The  commissioners  of  the  three  orthodox  sister 
colonies  appealed  to  it,  with  loyal  respect  for  its  authority,  even  after  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Rhode  Island  Charter. 

The  prayer  of  Scot's  petition  in  his  own  behalf,  mentioned  before,  was  that 


32  THE   NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 

gloried  in  upholding,  led  them  at  various  periods  to  the  verge 
of  treason,  to  tyranny  over  the  consciences  of  their   fellow- 


he  might  be  appointed  Governor  of  Long  Island,  or  liberty  be  granted  to  the 
inhabitants  to  choose  a  governor  and  assistants  yearly.  In  the  reference  of 
this  petition  to  the  consideration  of  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Plantations, 
Bennet  premises  that  the  king,  "  having  received  good  testimony  of  Scot's  loy- 
alty &  great  sufferings,  and  being  fully  satisfyed  of  his  particular  abilities  to 
serve  him,  was  graciously  inclined  to  encourage  him  in  his  desires." 

To  forward  his  project  for  obtaining  the  government  he  sought,  Scot's  first 
step  was  to  complain  to  the  Committee  of  Foregn  Plantations  of  the  intrusions 
of  the  Dutch  into  the  main  land  of  New  England,  some  islands  adjacent,  and 
in  particular  on  Manhaddoes  and  Long  Islands.  In  consequence  of  his  repre- 
sentations, the  committee,  on  the  6th  of  July,  ordered  "  Captain  Scot,  Mr. 
Maverick,  and  Mr.  Baxter,  to  draw  up  a  brief  narrative,  showing  the  King's 
title,  the  Dutch  intrusion,  their  deportment  since;  management, strength, trade, 
and  government  there;  and,  lastly,  the  means  to  make  them  acknowledge  or 
submit  to  the  King's  government,  or  to  compel  them  thereto,  or  expulse  them" 
(T.  A.'s  1ST.  York  MSS.  Papers,  i.  fol.  11;  N.  York  Hist.  Doc.,  iii.  46).  Maverick's 
petition  concerning  Massachusetts,  mentioned  in  the  sequel,  and  which  led  to 
the  appointment,  in  the  following  year,  of  himself  and  three  others,  as  Royal 
Commissioners  to  the  colonies,  was  probably  formed  about  this  time,  in  co-op- 
eration with  Scot's  plan  for  subjugating  the  Dutch  colonists;  and  likewise,  that 
in  order  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  consequently  that  of  Clar- 
endon, for  the  scheme,  suggestions  were  made  in  regard  to  the  expediency  of 
bestowing  upon  the  king's  brother  the  important  territory  to  be  recovered  from 
the  Dutch;  which  was  effected  by  the  king's  letters-patent,  on  the  12th  day  of 
March,  1664, — nearly  half  a  year  before  the  actual  surrender  by  the  Dutch 
Governor  Stuyvesant. 

Scot,  on  his  return,  carried  with  him  the  famous  letter,  and  the  royal  instruc- 
tions enforcing  the  observance  of  the  navigation-laws ;  which,  of  course,  would 
put  an  end  to  any  open  illicit  trade  with  the  Dutch  colonists.  He  was  received, 
on  his  arrival,  with  cordial  welcome.  The  great  men  of  the  different  colonies 
who  were  associated  with  the  Atherton  Company  were  grateful  for  the  efforts 
which  had  secured  for  it  the  royal  favor,  and  also  effectually  placed  it  under 
the  broad  protection  of  the  Confederated  Colonies.  Hew  Haven  proclaimed 
her.  gratitude  by  her  vote,  that  Scot  "  had  been  a  good  friend  to  the  Colony  in 
general,  and  to  some  persons  in  particular  "  (N.  Haven  Rec.,  ii.  515).  She  paid 
all  his  expenses ;  and  furnished  him  with  an  armed  force,  when  he  soon  after 
went  to  Long  Island.  Connecticut  appointed  him  a  commissioner  at  Setawket 
(or  Ashford),  with  magisterial  power  throughout  Long  Island.  Winthrop 
himself  administered  the  oath  of  office  to  him  and  his  colleagues,  Talcott, 
Young,  and  Woodhull. 

After  writing  a  letter  on  the  14th  December,  1663,  to  the  Secretary  William- 
son, to  caution  him  against  the  Dutch,  and  to  send  his  "service  to  noble  Mr. 
Chiffinch,"  he  proceeded  to  Long  Island;  and,  011  the  31st  of  that  month,  ad- 
dressed a  letter  to  Governor  Stuyvesant  respecting  that  island.  On  the  llth 
of  January  following,  he,  with  Captain  Young  (Yougs),  was  at  the  Dutch  vil- 
lage of  Midwont,  with  sixty  or  seventy  horse,  and  as  many  foot,  with  flying 


THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 


men,  and  to  inhumanities  that  wring  the  heart  of  the  modern 
Christian.       It    is    not    wonderful,    therefore,    that,    thfough 


colors,  drums  beating,  and  trumpets  sounding.  Wlien  called  upon  to  show  by 
what  authority  he  came  in  that  warlike  manner,  he  exhibited  a  letter,  drawn 
up  by  the  magistrates  at  Hartford,  for  him  and  his  colleagues  to  inquire  what 
right  the  Dutch  might  have  to  Long.  Island.  He  then,  as  the  Dutch  report 
states,  "  stuck  it  back  in  his  pocket,  saying, '  If  Mr.  Stuyveysant  come  over,  I 
shall  speak  to  him  of  weightier  matters,"  (N.  Y.  Hist.  Doc.,  ii.  393 — 4). 

He  came  ostensibly  in  pursuance  of  his  instructions  to  bring  the  English  set- 
tlements or  villages,  which  the  Dutch  had  recently  at  Hartford  agreed  to  relin- 
quish, to  accept  the  jurisdiction  of  Connecticut.  But  these  communities  were 
not  unanimous  in  regard  to  the  proposed  annexation.  The  inhabitants  who 
were  in  favor  of  it  complained  of  the  indirect  and  ambiguous  language  of  the 
Connecticut  authorities  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  all  the  Quakers,  Baptists, 
and  other  heterodox  sectaries,  dreaded  a  Puritan  thraldom;  and  no  doubt 
the  deported  loyalist  Scot  cordially  sympathized  witli  them  (Brodhead  725). 

He  thought  the  time  had  now  come  when  he  might  drop  the  mask,  mid  openly 
take  service  under  the  duke's  banner.  He  therefore  announced  to  the  people, 
*hat  the  king  had  granted  the  island  to  the  Duke  of  York,  who  would  shortly 
make  his  intentions  known.  A  number  of  the  English  villages  combined  in 
rejecting  the  proffered  union  with  Connecticut  ;  and  empowered  Scot,  as  their 
president,  to  provide  for  the  public  safety  and  welfare  (Brodhead,  726).  Under 
this  independent  temporary  authority,  it  appears  that,  not  content  with  the 
English  parts  of  Long  Island,  about  the  28th  of  February  he  claimed  the  whole 
of  it,  and  the  entire  province  of  New  Netherland  besides  (N.  Y.  Hist.  Doc.,  ii. 
231.) 

But  his  dream  of  ambition  was  speedily  interrupted.  The  magistrates  of 
Connecticut,  exasperated  at  being  thus  perfidiously  baffled  in  their  scheme  for 
acquiring  territory  outside  their  charter  limits,  ordered  his  arrest  on  the  10th  of 
March.  He  was  soon  after  apprehended,  and  brought  to  the  Hartford  prison 
for  trial.  While  there,  he  was  dangerously  ill  ;  and,  as  Governor  Leete  wrote, 
likely  to  die,  as  Scot  conceived,  by  poison. 

Still  Scot's  condition  was  not  hopeless.  He  had  won  the  gratitude  of  New 
Haven  :  and  her  Governor  Leete,  who  was  propably  indebted  to  Scot's  friendly 
efforts  in  England  for  escaping  all  question  in  regard  to  the  concealment  of  the 
fugitive  regicides,  wrote  to  the  magistrates  of  the  Colonies  of  Plymouth  and 
Massachusetts,  entreating  them,  "  as  Confederates  of  a  special  interest  in  the 
weale  publique  &  peace  of  the  country,  ...  to  do  their  utmost  for  the  preven- 
tion of  Captain  Scot's  ruin,  and  the  hurt  that  may  come  thereby  to  the  coun- 
try ;  he  being  reputed  his  Majesties  servant,  and  upon  service  now,  by  letter  to 
the  united  Colonies,  when  thus  obstructed  ;  .  .  .  and  if . . ,  the  matter  &  manner 
how  do  come  to  be  narrated,  as  it  is  likely  to  be,  no  one  appearing  to  prevent  it, 
all  may  be  damnified."  His  "  thoughts  and  desires  are  that  the  Governor  of 
Plymouth  may  advise  agreement,  and  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colo- 
nies be  called  to  Hartford  to  see  and  appoint  what  is  to  be  done,  &  how,"  in  the 
anatter.  He  names  the  8th  of  May  as  the  time  fixed  for  Scot's  trial  (Mass.  Arch., 
ii.  183). 

Governor  Leete  had  a  particular  concern  for  New  Haven,  which  he  consid- 


34  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

agencies  to  which  this  noxious  principle  gave  birth,  the  adjoin- 
ing Iferetic  colony  should  be   obstructed  by  many  unworthy 


ered  to  be  "  struck  at  in  the  business ; "  and  he  had  also  cause  to  share,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  apprehensions  which  his  obscure  but  well-understood  and  omi- 
nous intimations  were  calculated  to  excite  in  the  minds  of  the  Massachusetts 
rulers  (Hutch.  Coll.,  334). 

According  to  Chalmers,  from  the  Restoration  to  Ki82,  when,  by  Cranston's 
advice,  the  "  General  Court  attempted  to  bribe  the  King,"  they  had  tampered 
with  the  fidelity  of  the  king's  ministers,  aLd  kept  in  constant  pay  the  clerks  of 
the  Council,  in  order  to  learn  the  '•  secrets  of  administration."  He  does  not 
specify  instances ;  but  he  gives  several  names,  and  refers  to  the  files  of  the 
State-paper  Office  (Chalmer's  Pol.  Ann.,  412—13,  461).  In  the  sequel,  it  will 
appear  that  documents  were  surreptitiously  obtained,  and  conveyed  to  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  ;  and,  in  one  instance,  by  Scot  himself.  The  presumption 
that  Scot  was  regularly  employed  in  such  service,  while  in  England,  is  strength- 
ened by  the  fact,  that  almost  immediately  after  his  return,  when  they  were 
called  upon  to  account  for  their  seizure  and  imprisonment  of  Saunders  and 
Burdett,  and  particularly  needed  some  one  to  replace  him,  the  magistrate  in 
council,  on  the  31st  of  December,  1663,  adverting  to  the  circumstance,  that  they 
had  sent  to  Secretary  Morrice  by  the  last  ship,  a  "  true  narrative  of  the  differ- 
ence between "  them  "  and  Rhode  Island,  appointed  a  committee  of  three 
(Willoughbly,  Danforth,  and  Leveret),  and  empowered  them  to  improve  some 
friend  or  friends  in  England,  as  they  shall  judge  meete,  to  make  way  for  the 
improvement  of  our  information,  &c.,  and  giving  us  the  best  advice  how  our 
affairs  stand  in  England,  and  prevent  all  inconveniences  the  best  they  may ;  and 
the  charges  .  .  .  expended  .  .  .  thereon  "  should  "  be  repaid  seasonably  .  .  .  out 
of  the  publike  Treasury"  (Mass.  Arch.,  vol.  cvi.  p.  71.) 

On  the  18th  of  the  following  May,  the  General  Court  approved  of  the  meas- 
ure and  appropriated  £400  to  carry  it  out  (Mass.  Rec.  iv.  pt.  ii.  101). 

Governor  Leete's  letter  was  brought  by  Scot's  servant ;  from  whose  relation, 
and  from  Scot's  papers,  brought  at  the  same  time,  a  full  knowledge  might  be 
gained  of  "  the  transactions  of  a  cloudy  aspect,"  which  had  occasioned  "  the 
extremity  of  hazards  to  him  and  the  country. "  Five  days  after  the  date  of 
Leete's  letter,  the  Massachusetts  magistrates  commissioned  General  Leveret 
and  Captain  Davis  to  negotiate  with  the  authorities  of  Connecticut  about 
Capt.  Scot  ;  and  the  next  day,  28th  of  April,  Governor  Prence,  of  Plymouth, 
who  had  been  written  to  already  by  Secretary  Rawson,  wrote  urging  them  to 
do  what  they  had  already  done,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  "  a  case  in  which  the 
whole  might  be  deeply  concerned."  He  afterwards  fulfilled  his  promise  contain- 
ed in  this  letter  by  sending  Bradford  and  Southworth  as  commissioners  to 
Hartford  (Mass.  Arch.,  ii.  184;  Hutch.  Coll.  384). 

The  combined  interposition  was  unavailing.  Scot  was  brought  to  trial  in  the 
Particular  Court  at  Hartford  ;  and  on  the  24th  of  May,  1664,  was  convicted  on 
ten  charges,  among  which  were  usurpation  of  the  king's  authority,  forgery  and 
perjury.  He  was  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  £250  ;  to  be  imprisoned  during 
the  pleasure  of  the  Court ;  to  give  security  to  the  amount  of  £500  for  his  good 
behavior  ;  to  be  degraded  from  the  office  of  commissioner  on  Long  Island ;  and 
to  be  disfranchised.  His  estate  was  sequestered  ;  and,  in  1665,  his  former  col- 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  35 

expedients  in  her  anxious  efforts  to  establish  order  and  a  regu- 
lar government  under  her  charter.     To  this  end,  under  a  pre- 


league,  Tacott,  and  Allen,  the  Secretary,  were  empowered  to  sell  his  land  on 
Long  Island,  to  pay  his  fine  (Conn.  Rec.,  ii.  16).  They  probably  found  some 
difficulty  in  executing  this  Connecticut  commission,  owing  to  an  intermediate 
change  of  circumstances.  Scot  had  escaped  from  prison  ;  Long  Island  had 
been  granted  to  the  Duke  of  York  ;  the  Royal  Commissioners  (Nicolls,  Cart- 
wright,  Carr,  and  his  old  friend  Maverick)  had  arrived  ;  and  Scot  placed  him- 
self under  their  protection,  so  advantageously,  that,  according  to  the  Dutch 
report,  on  the  25th  of  August  (4th  September,  N.  S.),  two  days  before  New 
Amsterdam  surrendered  to  Colonel  Nicolls,  Scot,  "  who  had  heretofore  sum- 
moned Long  Island,"  joined  the  English  force  with  his  horse  and  foot  (N.  Y. 
Hist.  Doc.,  ii.  393). 

It  will  be  recollected,  that  Scot,  in  his  petition  to  the  king,  stated  that  he  had 
"  purchased  near  one-third  part  of  Long  Island."  This  might  be  so,  but  as  the 
Indians,  of  whom  he  purchased,  often  sold  the  same  land,  over  and  over  again, 
to  different  individuals,  who,  in  turn,  often  had  no  written  license  or  confirma- 
tion from  the  agent  of  Lord  Sterling,  his  title,  in  common  with  others,  would 
frequently  be  brought  into  question  and  angry  controversy.  A  great  dispute 
of  this  kind  between  the  inhabitants  of  Jamaica,  Long  Island,  was  adjusted 
by  Colonel  Nicolls,  as  Deputy-Governor,  under  the  duke,  of  his  possessions  in 
America,  on  the  2d  of  January,  1665.  Some  of  Scot's  ubiquitous  purchases 
were  very  probably  among  the  subjects  of  this  litigation  ;  which  proved  so 
troublesome  and  embarrassing  to  Nicolls,  as  to  induce  him  to  ordain,  that  no 
purchase  from  the  Indians,  without  the  Governor's  license,  executed  in  his 
presence,  should  be  valid  (Smith's  New  York,  p.  27). 

Hardly  was  this  controversy  disposed  of,  when  Nicolls  was  troubled  with  a 
complaint  laid  before  him  by  Secretary  Allen,  on  the  1st  of  February,  that 
"  Scot,  according  to  his  wonted  course,  was  creating  disturbance  among  the 
people  of  Sewtawket,  by  laboring  to  deprive  them  of  their  land,  which  he 
claimed  by  purchase  from  Indians  ".(^-  Y.  Doc.,  ii.  86). 

About  this  period,  Nicolls  appears  to  have  lost  all  confidence  in  Scot.  He 
was  well  aware  that  Scot  had  coveted  and  expected  the  government  of  Long 
Island.  Nicolls,  a  wise,  upright,  and  zealous  servant  of  the  king  and  the  Duke 
of  York,  preferred  to  retain  it,  rather  than  encounter  the  hazard  of  intrusting 
it  to  Scot.  In  a  letter  to  the  duke,  written  probably  in  November,  1665  (N.  Y. 
Hist.  Doc.,  iii.  105),  Nicolls  says,  "  Scot,  born  to  work  mischief  as  far  as  he  is 
credited  or  his  parts  serve  him,  contrived  and  betrayed  Lord  Berkely  and  Sir 
George  Carteret  into  a  design  of  ruining  all  hope  of  increase  in  your  royal 
highuess's  territory ;"  i.  e.,  by  the  grant  to  them  of  all  his  territory  west  of 
Hudson's  river. 

This  letter,  which  gave  the  duke  the  first  information  that  the  names  of  New 
Amsterdam  and  Aurania  had  been  changed  into  those  of  his  two  titles,  York 
and  Albany  was  followed  on  the  24th  of  October,  1666,  by  another  respecting 
Scot,  addressed  to  Secretary  Morrice,  in  which  Nicolls  says,  "  I  think  it  my 
duty  to  inform  you  that  a  copy  of  his  Majesty's  signification  to  Massachusetts 
was  sureptitiously  conveyed  over  to  them,  by  some  unknown  hand,  before  the 
original  came  to  Boston  ;  and  formerly  the  very  original  of  Mr.  Maverick's 


36  THE   NARRAGANSET    PATENT. 

tence  of  jurisdiction  too  shallow  ever  to  be  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  the  Commissioners  of  Plantations,  heathen  savages 


petition  to  the  Privy  Council,  concerning  Massachusetts,  was  stolen  out  of 
Lord  Arlington's  office  by  Captain  John  Scot,  and  delivered  to  the  Governor  & 
Council  at  Boston.  This  I  affirm  positively  to  be  true ;  though  Scot,  when  I 
questioned  him  upon  the  matter,  said  that  a  clerk  of  Mr.  Williamson's  gave  it 
him.  The  same  Scot,  by  a  pretended  seale,  affixed  to  a  writing,  in  which  was 
the  King's  picture  drawn  with  a  pen  or  black  lead,  with  his  Majesty's  hand, 
Charles  R.,  and  subsigned  H.  Bennet,  had  horribly  abused  his  Majesty's  honor 
in  these  parts,  and  hath  fled  to  Barbadoes.  Lord  Willoughby  sent  word  that 
he  would  send  him  toEngland"  (id.,  iv.  136) 

Thus  terminated  the  American  career  of  Scot.  Of  the  subsequent  events  of 
his  life,  nothing  certain  is  known.  With  all  his  faults,  he  had  the  adroitness 
to  acquire  no  small  favor  with  leading  men,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng- 
land, and  to  be  on  terms  of  familiar  intercourse  with  them.  His  complaint 
against  the  Dutch  intrusion,  aided,  if  it  did  not  originate,  the  design  of  sending 
out  the  first  expedition  against  the  Dutch  possessions  in  this  country.  It  nat- 
urally contributed,  together  with  his  own  suggestions,  and  those  in  the  narra- 
tive drawn  up  by  himself  and  his  colleagues,  Maverick  and  Baxter,  to  the 
royal  grant,  made  to  the  Duke  of  York,  of  those  possessions,  before  they  were 
actually  gained  by  the  English  forces ;  and  it  paved  the  way  for  the  duke's  sub- 
sequent transfer  of  the  Jerseys  to  Lord  Berkeley,  the  President  of  the  Com- 
mittee, before  whom  the  complaint  was  laid,  and  to  Sir  George  Carteret,  the 
friend  and  naval  associate  of  the  duke. 

Up  to  the  period  of  his  conviction,  he  appears  to  have  stood  well  with  the 
highest  public  men  of  this  country;  and  there  was  no  visible  reason  why  it 
should  not  be  so.  He  was  not  deficient  in  education  :  he  had  raised  himself  to 
considerable  wealth,  to  the  rank  of  captain  and  of  commissioner  ;  and  had 
been  employed  confidentially  abroad,  both  by  Massachusetts  and  by  the  Ath- 
erton  Company,  which  comprised  some  of  the  dignitaries  of  the  land.  If  Win- 
throp  had  believed  him  to  be  unworthy,  he  would  neither  have  consented  to  his 
appointment  as  First  Commissioner  for  Long  Island,  nor  have  administered  to 
him  the  oath  of  office  Winthrop's  objection  to  Scot's  "  prosecuting  "  Hutch- 
inson's  Atherton  "  affairs,  while  he  remained  in  London,"  was  founded,  not  on 
any  personal  aversion  of  his,  at  that  time,  to  Scot,  but  obvkmsly  on  the  reason 
assigned  in  Scot's  famous  letter  to  Hutchin son;  namely,  that  "  he,"  Winthrop, 
"  had  had  much  trouble  with  Mr.  Clarke."  That  trouble  having  been  amicably 
terminated,  he  was  unwilling  to  revive  it  in  any  shape;  antf  least  of  all,  we 
may  be  sure,  as  no  doubt  Scot  was,  would  Winthrop  be  a  party  to  a  contrivance 
for  vitiating  his  own  plighted  faith  by  falsehood  and  the  defamation  of  Clarke 
The  plan  of  Scot,  on  the  other  hand,  which  he  probably  did  not  dare  to  dis- 
close to  Winthrop,  was  to  make  the  ruin  of  Clarke's  reputation  the  basis  of  all 
his  sinister  proceedings  in  behalf  of  the  Atherton  Company. 

As  these  all  had  at  least  the  tacit  sanction  of  Hutchinson,  and  means  were 
furnished  for  them,  it  follows,  almost  unavoidably,  that  Hutchinson  did  employ 
him,  with  a  latitude  of  discretion  that  allowed  him  to  take  himself  and  Chiffinch 
"  into  the  Society,"  and  to  expend  money  in  bribes  as  lie  "  might  deem  meet." 
It  is  a  matter  of  history,  that  the  fruits  of  Scot's  knavery  were  received  with 


THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT.  37 

and  lawless  white  men  within  her  chartered  limits  were  upheld 
in  resistance  to  the  lawful  authority  in  riotous,  vicious,  and 
disorderly  practices,  in  molesting  the  families,  and  in  depreda- 
tions upon  the  defenceless  property,  of  the  inhabitants.  When 
in  danger  of  attack  from  the  Narragansets,  Rhode  Island,  with 
her  hundred  and  twenty  Christian  English  families,  was  refused 
the  sale  of  the  smallest  supply  of  powder  ;  while  ammunition 


gratitude,  and  without  compunction.  The  letter  filched  from  the  king  was 
vaunted  as  more  authoritative  than  the  Charter  of  Rhode  Island,  bearing  the 
royal  sign  manual  and  the  Great  Seal  of  England  ;  and  likewise  as  crowning 
proof  that  the  charter  itself  was  basely  and  insidiously  obtained,  although  it  is 
demonstrable  that  the  charter  was  known  to  have  been  framed  openly,  and  with 
unusual  deliberation.  For  that  part  of  it  relating  to  Narragansett,  and  there- 
fore most  unacceptable  to  its  impugners,  was  founded  on  the  award  of  five 
arbitrators,  agreed  to  and  accepted  by  the  Commissioners  of  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island,  the  colonies  most  interested  in  the  matter  ;  and  another  clause, 
providing  for  the  freedom  of  religious  opinion,  was  inserted  by  the  king's  spe- 
cial order.  Roger  Williams,  in  his  letter  to  Mason,  says,  "  This  his  Majesty's 
grant  was  startled  at  by  his  Majesty's  high  officers  of  state  who  were  to  view 
it"  (the  charter)  "in  course  before  the  sealing  ;  but,  fearing  the  lions  roaring, 
they  couched,  against  their  wills,  in  obedience  to  his  Majesty's  pleasure." 
Can  there  be,  at  this  day,  any  ground  for  believing  that  the  charter  was  ob- 
tained by  chicanery,  or  that  the  king  signed  it  in  ignorance  of  its  purport  ? 
(Haz.  ii.  499  ;  Bancroft,  ii.  64 ;  Arnold,  i.  300-9,  383-5;  Plyin.  Rec.,  x;  Acts  of 
Com.  U.  C.,320.) 

In  regard  to  the  clause  in  the  Connecticut  Charter  respecting  Narraganset, 
the  truth  appears  to  be,  that  Winthrop,  not  having,  as  the  correspondence 
shows,  very  definite  notions  of  the  topography  of  Narragansett,  depended  too 
much  upon  the  representations  of  Hutchinson,  whose  agency  and  frequent  and 
long  visits  had  made  him  more  familiar  with  all  the  localities  ;  and  whose  un- 
scrupulous subordinate,  Scot,  had  sufficient  topical  knowledge,  as  well  as  art 
and  shrewdness,  to  persuade  Winthrop,  that  the  estuary  at  the  mouth  of  Paw- 
catuck  river  was  called  Narragansett  Bay,  as  the  Pawcatuck  itself,  bordering 
upon  the  country  of  the  Narragansett  Indians,  would  naturally  often  be  popu- 
larly called  the  Narragansett  River  ;  just  as,  for  the  same  reason,  the  same 
name,  Narragansett,  was,  so  early  as  1634,  applied  to  the  north  branch  of  the 
now  Taunton  River,  which  bordered  the  eastern  side  of  the  Narragansett  poss- 
essions (Wood's  N.  Eng.  Prosp.  map ;  Arnold,  ut  supra). 

It  has  been  mentioned  before,  that  Scot  might  have  been  the  bearer  of  the 
copy  of  the  Narragansett  Patent  sent  to  Winthrop  in  London.  Whether  he 
were  so  or  not,  as  confidential  agent  and  co-proprietor  of  the  Atherton  Com- 
pany, he  had  free  access  to  it,  both  here  and  in  England.  He  was  quite  capa- 
ble and  ready  to  fabricate  any  expedient  interpolation ;  and  his  friend  Chiifinch 
would  have  cheerfully  brought  all  the  skill  of  London  to  his  aid.  These  cir- 
cunsstances  throw  an  additional  shade  of  doubt  on  the  genuineness  of  the 
after-insertions,  respecting  seals,  in  the  Winthrop  copy. 


38  THE    NAKRAGANSET    PATENT. 

and  armed  men  were,  about  the  same  time,  promptly  sent  to 
protect  the  savage  Pomham  against  the  very  same  foe,  (Johnson, 
107,  111,  231 ;  Welde,  Answer  to  W.  K.,  61,  67;  Hutch.  Coll., 
154,  275-283  ;  Shepard  N.  E.  Lament,  3 ;  Gobbet's  Civ.  Mag., 
81,  82-5  ;  Ward,  Simp.  Gobi.,  5  ;  Winth.,  ii.  173  ;  Simp.  De- 
fence, 5). 

It  is  painful  to  advert  to  these  things.  But  our  forefathers* 
though  wise,  pious,  and  sincere,  were  nevertheless,  in  respect  to 
Christian  charity,  under  a  cloud ;  and,  in  history,  truth  should 
be  held  sacred,  at  whatever  cost.  We,  who  are  stationed,  as 
it  were,  at  the  portals  of  history,  are  peculiarly  bound  to  con- 
sider it  a  solemn,  however  unwelcome  duty,  on  all  occasions, 
in  defence  of  truth,  to  withstand  even  "  the  pure,  to  whom  all 
things  are  pure,"  as  well  as  the  "  charity  that  believeth  all 
things  ; "  and  also  to  enter  the  lists  against  that  blind  zeal, 
which  is  all  the  blinder  and  more  pernicious  because  it  will  not 
see ;  and  especially  against  the  narrow  and  futile  patriotism, 
which,  instead  of  pressing  forward  in  pursuit  of  truth,  takes 
pride  in  walking  backwards  to  cover  the  slightest  nakedness  of 
our  forefathers. 

This  paper,  intended  at  first  to  be  restricted  to  the  single 
purpose  of  self-vindication,  has  been  somewhat  enlarged,  in  the 
hope,  that,  by  bringing  into  view  the  few  scattered  fragments 
of  history  bearing  upon  the  subject,  some  light  might  be  thrown 
upon  the  obscurities  and  doubts  which  still  rested  upon  it, 
merely  because  it  had  been  only  cursorily  and  not  thoroughly 
examined.  At  the  suggestion  of  a  learned  and  distinguished 
friend  and  associate,  I  venture,  however,  to  append  a  sketch  of 
the  principal  points  embraced  in  the  preceding  remarks. 

Various  accounts  concur  in  ascribing  the  origin  of  the  Nar- 
raganset  Patent  to  the  spontaneous  unauthorized  efforts  of  the 
Massachusetts  agent,  Mr.  Welde.  He  apparently  obtained, 
by  personal  applications  at  various  times  and  places,  the  signa- 
tures of  nine  out  of  the  eighteen  Commissioners  of  Plantations 
to  the  parchment  document  now  at  the  State  House.  Whether 
he  ever  obtained  their  seals  also,  is  not  so  clear.  The  certified 
Winthrop  copy  of  that  document  is  not  conclusive  and  indubi- 
table proof  of  the  fact. 


THE    NARRAGANSET    PATENT.  8§ 

There  is  no  proof  whatever  that  the  original  was  ever  sub- 
mitted to  the  Board  of  Commissioners  collectively.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  was  publicly  declared,  by  the  Lord  President  Warwick, 
that  it  had  never  passed  the  Board ;  as,  in  fact,  wanting  the 
signatures  and  seals  of  a  majority  of  the  commissioners,  as  pre- 
scribed by  ordinance,  it  never  could  have  done :  and  hence  it  is 
perfectly  certain,  that  it  was  not  entitled  to  be  either  enrolled 
or  dated.  No  proof,  or  even  pretence  of  its  enrolment  is  known ; 
while  official  assertions,  made  within  twenty  years  of  the  time 
when  the  document  was  written,  that  it  had  never  been  enrolled, 
and  that  ample  and  careful  search  for  the  enrolment  had  also 
been  made,  passed  at  the  time,  and  remain  to  this  day,  without 
contradiction.  Its  present  date  is  a  forgery, — a  criminal,  un- 
authorized insertion  :  and,  being  on  a  Sunday,  a  palpable  false- 
hood besides. 

Welde  knew  that  it  was  a  worthless  instrument.  Had  he 
thought  otherwise,  he  would  neither  have  wished  nor  dared  to 
retain  it  in  his  own  hands  more  than  a  year  and  a  half;  for  his 
writings  show  that  he  was  no  friend  to  toleration,  or  to  the 
tolerant  community  in  Rhode  Island;  and  he  would  have  ex- 
ulted in  the  accomplishment  of  his  original  purpose  of  subject- 
ing the  whole  territory  to  the  4'  wholesome  severity  "  of  the 
orthodox  colony  of  which  he  was  agent.  He  could  not  be 
ignorant  that  his  hopes  were  defeated,  and  his  projected  charter 
virtually  annihilated,  by  the  grant,  at  the  instance  of  Roger 
Williams,  of  the  Providence-Plantations  Charter,  on  the  14th 
of  March,  164|.  Two  charters,  grants  to  different  parties  of 
the  same  territory,  are,  of  course,  incompatible,  and  cannot 
co-exist.  The  recognition  of  one  is  the  extinction  of  the  other. 

This  recognition  of  the  Providence-Plantations  Charter  was 
distinctly  announced  in  the  letter  from  Lords  and  Commoners 
in  Parliament,  brought  by  Williams,  in  September,  1644,  to 
the  Massachusetts  authorities ;  and,  at  various  periods  after- 
wards, was  officially  made  by  the  Commissioners  of  Plantations 
in  their  letters  to  Massachusetts.  In  all  these,  that  charter  is 
recognized,  while  the  Narraganset  Patent  is  utterly  ignored. 

Even  the  Massachusetts  authorities   of  the  time  appear  to 


40  THE   NARRAGANSET   PATENT. 

have  had  very  little  real  belief  in  its  validity.  They  did  not 
hesitate  to  contravene  its  provisions  ;  they  abandoned  their 
professed  design  of  negotiating  respecting  it  in  England  ;  and 
in  their  controversies  with  Rhode  Island  and  other  colonies, 
without  adverting  to  that  instrument,  they  founded  their  claim 
to  lands  in  Rhode  Island  entirely  upon  other  grounds. 

When  subsequently  brought  forward  in  the  name  of  Massa- 
chusetts, at  the  instigation  of  Massachusetts  speculators  in 
Rhode-Island  lands,  the  main  object  in  view  was,  not  to  claim 
the  territory,  but  merely  to  transfer  from  Rhode  Island  to 
Connecticut  the  jurisdiction  over  certain  portions  of  land  in  the 
former  colony,  on  which,  by  her  charter  and  laws,  they  (the 
speculators)  were  intruders  and  trespassers.  The  question 
between  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  as  to  the  portion  of 
Southertown  east  of  the  Pawcatuck,  was  essentially  one  of 
mere  boundary.  Secretary  Rawson's  letter  of  the  8th  of 
March,  1662,  to  the  Colonial  Government  of  Rhode  Island, 
claimed  Southertown  on  the  ground  that  it  was  included  in  the 
Narraganset  Patent.  But  the  territory  granted  being  the  same 
in  both  patents,  and  the  Narraganset  Patent  being  a  nonentity, 
it  necessarily  followed,  that  Rhode  Island,  by  her  charter,  was 
the  rightful  owner  of  the  land  in  controversy.  In  that  sense 
was  the  subject  treated  in  the  reply  of  the  Rhode-Island  Gov- 
ernment of  the  22d  of  the  following  May,  as  well  as  at  a  later 
period  by  the  Royal  Commissioners  ;  and  I  have  not  discovered 
a  single  instance  in  which  the  Welde  Patent  ever  found  coun- 
tenance from  the  English  authorities,  either  at  home  or  in  this 
country,  (Mass.  Arch.,  ii.  26 ;  R.  Isl.  Rec.,  461,  469 ;  Mass. 
Rec.,  iv.,  2d  pt.,  175,  1T6  ;  Arnold,  i.  316  ;  Hutch.  Coll.,  382). 


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